My overall thoughts on my iPad Air 2 after a year owning it

[Channan]

I wonder the same thing... How do you even locate what you want to run, with 47 home pages of icons, or a gazillion folders with multiple pages each?

Sounds like a digital version of Hoarders. haha

On my iPad, I have one page with the apps I use on a regular basis and one folder of apps I don't use often but still need occasionally and the default apps I don't need and can't uninstall. I couldn't imagine having to deal with that many apps. D: Thank God for Spotlight, though.

 

[Channan]

And when I use it in that scope, my iPad works fine for me too. Like I said, I was expecting more of a PC experience in tablet form, which is what Windows and Android deliver, and the iPad is simply not that.

Once I adjusted my expectations, I was fine with it.

My negative feelings have more to do with how Apple does things in general. They take years to catch up to the competition and when they do they claim they did something new, even though everyone else had been doing it for years. I just don't get it. The hardware is there, just let us the consumers decide how we want to use it. Let me pick what freaking app I want to use by default, you know? Don't make me copy and paste links between apps in this day and age.

That stuff is enraging, because there is no practical need to lock the devices down like that.

It used to be iOS was behind in features but far ahead in polish and appearance. Android had much better features, but it was ugly and clunky. Then Android finally caught up to iOS in polish and appearance but iOS is still lacking many features present in Android.

I mainly use an iPad over Android for battery life, but the premium look and construction is also a huge plus. My Android tablet doesn't quite get half the battery life of my iPad Air 2. If I could run Android on my iPad and still get 10+ hours of use, I'd probably never use iOS again.

 

[SquireSCA]

On my iPad, I have one page with the apps I use on a regular basis and one folder of apps I don't use often but still need occasionally and the default apps I don't need and can't uninstall. I couldn't imagine having to deal with that many apps. D: Thank God for Spotlight, though.

Yeah, I see guys on Android doing the same thing... They HAVE to have like 150 apps installed... I am like, what the heck do you need that for? How can you actually USE that many apps, regularly?

I think that some people live on their mobile devices, perhaps... I have one page with my main apps, and a couple folders on that page for "Productivity", "Google Apps", "Utilities" and then the second page is just games.

Neither page is actually full.

 

[Channan]

Yeah, I see guys on Android doing the same thing... They HAVE to have like 150 apps installed... I am like, what the heck do you need that for? How can you actually USE that many apps, regularly?

I think that some people live on their mobile devices, perhaps... I have one page with my main apps, and a couple folders on that page for "Productivity", "Google Apps", "Utilities" and then the second page is just games.

Neither page is actually full.

I "live" on my mobile devices and still don't have that many apps.

 

[SquireSCA]

It used to be iOS was behind in features but far ahead in polish and appearance. Android had much better features, but it was ugly and clunky. Then Android finally caught up to iOS in polish and appearance but iOS is still lacking many features present in Android.

I mainly use an iPad over Android for battery life, but the premium look and construction is also a huge plus. My Android tablet doesn't quite get half the battery life of my iPad Air 2. If I could run Android on my iPad and still get 10+ hours of use, I'd probably never use iOS again.

That's a fair statement. Android was the not as pretty, but more customizable and flexible, feature packed OS but Apple had all the polish. But Apple really hasn't done much in 7 years except lift a couple Android features.

Android in the meantime, really added polish and the OS looks as good if not better visually, than iOS. And if you don't like the stock look, switch to a different launcher and radically change the entire look and feel and UI. Usually for free, without root, etc...

Apple has a really loyal fan base. People want to own Apple products, not because of what they can do, but because they are Apple products. They are the Harley Davidson of the tech world. Not bad, but not better either, usually behind the times, but with great marketing and a cult-like client base that will shell out top dollar for anything an Apple logo on it...

 

[bergman]

Perhaps a little more experience with iOS will halo you better manage documents. Consider Evernote, Dropbox or Google Drive along with their respective apps.

 

[SquireSCA]

Perhaps a little more experience with iOS will halo you better manage documents. Consider Evernote, Dropbox or Google Drive along with their respective apps.

Possibly. I guess that I am just used to the device doing most of those things without needing all the 3rd party apps and workarounds...

I am not saying that many common tasks can't be done in iOS... I am just saying that they are often far more complicated in iOS, which is ironic given the reputation of it being so simple for the end user.

Everything that it limits or makes you jump through hoops, is designed to force you to use Apple apps, or to go go buy an app from their store in order to do something that it really should do out of the box. It's a way to drive revenue, and that I think is lame when it hurts the user experience...

 

[BHHOWARD]

SquireSCA - Thanks for taking the time to post your concrete thoughts on what you find could be changed in iOS. Far too many times forum posts just contain a personal opinion that one OS is better than the other. I assume other lurkers also appreciate the information.

 

[SquireSCA]

SquireSCA - Thanks for taking the time to post your concrete thoughts on what you find could be changed in iOS. Far too many times forum posts just contain a personal opinion that one OS is better than the other. I assume other lurkers also appreciate the information.

And that is all I am trying to do, just give both sides from a user's perspective.

Most fanboys, from either side, don't do that. They speak about "what they heard" or their experience is limited. I have used both products for years and have them sitting here on my desk side by side. I know what one does better over the other, and vise versa. And I have friends that are firmly entrenched exclusively in either side and can see where they are coming from, and it is often out of ignorance of what the other side offers, or how it does it, etc...

I don't criticize just for the sake of bashing. I criticize because it is usually annoying, and there is obviously a way to fix it if the competition has been doing it for years... so in my mind, the "problem" exists because someone chooses to keep it that way, most often to push sales or other revenue streams, to lock out options, etc...

The hardware Apple uses is amazing. iOS, is mediocre at best, and that's the truth.

It only seems like the best thing out there to people that don't truly know what the other side is doing, so they simply don't know what they don't know.

The iPhone is actually getting closer to me being able to justify buying it...

For the longest time, the tiny screens that appealed to 13 year old girls, just didn't fit my man hands. LOL I hate watching postage stamp size movies. etc...

Apple finally listened to the overwhelming success of the Samsung Note series, to great success on Apple's part, it boosted sales significantly.

SD cards.. I am torn on... I have a Nexus 6 which has no slot but it has 32gb of storage. The reason I was willing to give up the SD slot is because with a $5 OTG plug, I can plug in a camera, an SD reader, even a 3TB external hard drive and just access them like I would anything else.

So a 64GB iPhone with a large screen isn't unappealing to me.

The things that still keep me from getting one:

1) Total lack of customization. I don't need to be OCD and worry about the shade of purple of the battery icon like some Android fans are, but I do want to set up my desktops in such a way as to make access to information easier. It's about workflow, as someone else pointed out... I want to see RSS feeds scrolling by in real time, have my music and YouTube widgets, etc... I hate just scrolling through pages of icons, running one at a time to see if anything is going on, closing it, moving on to the next, repeat... That's sooooo 2007. LOL

2) No ability to set app preferences. If I, as a 43 year old professional adult, want to use Google Maps or Firefox as my default apps when I clock on a link, LET ME DO THAT. That is really annoying, to have to sit and open the wrong app each time and then copy and paste... Again, did I get into a Delorean and hit 88mph and go back in time? haha

Those two things right there, the ability to set up my phone in a way to facilitate how I want to work, rather than change how I do things to fit within the narrow limitations of the device, is why I don't have an iPhone.

Well, those, and I don't know anyone with an iPhone that hasn't cracked their screen at some point or that doesn't drop calls constantly... That was the final straw for me and my wife and why we tossed out our iPhones and went to Android... Dropped calls, 10 a day, with full signal, didn't matter if we were driving around, sitting at home... Hell, it's a running joke at work when I have a sales rep on the phone and the connection drops, I can tell which brand of phone they have and my current accuracy is about 95%. LOL

 

[SquireSCA]

I think where I am more guilty of "bashing" is in regards to people, more than a product.

When I have conversations with friends or other people and point out what Android currently does better than the others, they usually say, "I don't need that" or "That's stupid"...

And then two years later when Apple announces their new product that has it, they are camped out for 5 days in the snow to get their hands on that "new feature that is so awesome"... the same one that I pointed out 2 years ago that they scoffed at, now that Apple decided to get with the times, is now the best thing evar!

That makes my eye twitch... LOL

 

[BHHOWARD]

I'm firmly in the Apple camp, but I, like others, express things I'd like to see changed about the hardware or software. The screen size was my biggest concern for years.

I think most of the Apple users open apps through search instead of looking through the numerous icons on our devices. Most of the good tech reporting sites, like iMore, have stated that the paradigm is dated and needs to change. I assume once Apple finds a good fit and it fits their development priority, they will implement. It seems Apple is innovating in other areas lately, particularly in developing hardware features that are tightly integrated with software that, as they say, gives them features that Apple can only do, because they own both sides.

As far as dropped calls, I've seen both Android and iOS users have issues with that. I've seen people switch between from Android to iOS (and vice versa) and change carriers at the same time and claim it was the hardware/OS. I've tested different carriers with the same OS and have found variability for data/voice. It really depends on the carrier and location.

I think as long was we are discussing facts and having intelligence debates, it is healthy for everyone.

 

[SquireSCA]

It seems Apple is innovating in other areas lately, particularly in developing hardware features that are tightly integrated with software that, as they say, gives them features that Apple can only do, because they own both sides.

I think as long was we are discussing facts and having intelligence debates, it is healthy for everyone.

What are examples of that? The innovation that only they can do?

Not saying it isn't true, but I don't know of anything off the top of my head and am curious...

 

[Closingracer]

I wonder the same thing... How do you even locate what you want to run, with 47 home pages of icons, or a gazillion folders with multiple pages each?

Sounds like a digital version of Hoarders. haha

Hoarders? Lol? It's on my iPad which I only have 3 pages and about a dozen folders.


I use them so how is this your problem?

 

[BHHOWARD]

I'm thinking of things like Touch ID, Apple Pay with Touch ID and Secure Element, and Forced-Touch. I don't think any other manufacture could enable these things as quickly as they did and also impact as many people. (Not saying that NFC payments was quick, but it was a complete solution - biometrics, secure storage, and tokenization - when it was finally released).

 

[JohnLinn]

I just put my larger PDFs in DropBox and they open fine from there. And once I have retrieved the PDF it is retained locally so I can access without down load each time.

 

[Dark_Huntress]

I too have had my Air 2 for a year. I love it! I got the 128 one and have no reason to replace it. Not even for the Pro.

 

[SquireSCA]

I'm thinking of things like Touch ID, Apple Pay with Touch ID and Secure Element, and Forced-Touch. I don't think any other manufacture could enable these things as quickly as they did and also impact as many people. (Not saying that NFC payments was quick, but it was a complete solution - biometrics, secure storage, and tokenization - when it was finally released).

I have not tried any of those yet, probably because I only have the pad, not the phone. I know that NFC and Google and Samsung have had some sort of similar service but I never tried them, so I don't know enough about the stuff to compare and contrast them.

 

[SquireSCA]

I just put my larger PDFs in DropBox and they open fine from there. And once I have retrieved the PDF it is retained locally so I can access without down load each time.

What app do you use? My issue was that even once I got it on there, the default app that APple forces me to use won't open it and I have to open it with a different app after the first one fails.

Actually, it's less about how you get it on there, as you pointed out, you can use a cloud service to do the transfer once... It's more about not being allowed to set your own app preferences,.

The list of features that keep me from owning an iPhone has shrunk over the years. But there are still a few very annoying things about iOS that keep me from using it as my daily phone...

 

[sparksd]

What app do you use? My issue was that even once I got it on there, the default app that APple forces me to use won't open it and I have to open it with a different app after the first one fails.

Actually, it's less about how you get it on there, as you pointed out, you can use a cloud service to do the transfer once... It's more about not being allowed to set your own app preferences,.

The list of features that keep me from owning an iPhone has shrunk over the years. But there are still a few very annoying things about iOS that keep me from using it as my daily phone...

I use FileBrowser to access my files on Dropbox, Google Drive, my NAS, and Windows desktops. I can open a PDF in FileBrowser's own viewer or select another app (e.g., Acrobat) to view it. If I use FileBrowser's viewer, a local copy of the PDF is not maintained but if select another app, then the PDF is downloaded and copied to that app. For an mp4 video file, I can stream it within FileBrowser or select another app to stream it - I like Infuse (a local copy is not made, it is streamed from the server).

Where I dislike the absence of selecting a default app the most would be the browser - I prefer 3rd party browsers like Chrome and Puffin over Safari.

 

[SquireSCA]

I use FileBrowser to access my files on Dropbox, Google Drive, my NAS, and Windows desktops. I can open a PDF in FileBrowser's own viewer or select another app (e.g., Acrobat) to view it. If I use FileBrowser's viewer, a local copy of the PDF is not maintained but if select another app, then the PDF is downloaded and copied to that app. For an mp4 video file, I can stream it within FileBrowser or select another app to stream it - I like Infuse (a local copy is not made, it is streamed from the server).

Where I dislike the absence of selecting a default app the most would be the browser - I prefer 3rd party browsers like Chrome and Puffin over Safari.

Yeajh, Safari does seem laggy and it is a memory hog.

Here is a good article that addresses what I was saying last week about the iPad just being a larger iPhone without the phone.

Physically, they look the same. The internal specs might be slightly different, but in the end the result is that other than doing it on a bigger screen, the iPad is really just a large iPhone that doesn't make calls.

The iPad Pro is a glaring reminder of the need for an iOS Home Screen refresh | iPad Insight

Not an Android fanboy site, lest anyone make that assumption. haha

But it does point out the antiquated UI flaws that I was discussing, where it's just a slab of icons and apart from copying Android's notification bar, the look and feel of the OS hasn't changed much since 2007. And the larger the screen gets, like in the case of the iPad Pro, the more glaring that limitation is. It needs to be addressed. Just having an open slab of inert icons worked on a phone 8 years ago. Now that the iPhone screens are larger, and you have iPads, there is no need to saddle them with the same limitations that the 3.5" iPhone had in 2007, is there?

You have all this screen real estate to expand the user experience into a more immersive, real-time environment...

The article is worth a read...