A year with an iPad... Should have got a netbook.

[ardchoille]

I had all manner of trouble going from a netbook to an iPad.. until I opened my mind to learning new ways of doing things. I have since given the netbook away and am happy on nothing more than an iPhone and pad.

 

[twerppoet]

. . .
Yeah, the touch and hold will be different, especially on websites.....what may appear to be a single word on a webpage might be a graphic or part of a table, so the touch and hold may not work as expected. Or it will grab more than you want and you will have to resize the selection and I have seen that be hard to do, depending on the website. I usually blame it on the website. . .

Yep. Websites are very unpredictable. Here are a couple of tricks that may help.

If you can't select a picture, select some text, then drag the selection handles to include the picture. You'll have to do a little more editing on the paste side, but that's abetter than nothing. Also, don't forget screenshots for grabbing images. You can zoom right in on what you want, then take a screen shot. You can fine tune the cropping in Photos.

When you are stuck with grabbing an entire paragraph of text, copy and paste to Notes. There you can select only the part you wanted to begin with. That's assuming it is not easier to do the editing in the destination app.

This is pretty much all I use Notes for these days, as a clipboard.

 

[Virtual]

Sometimes I feel the same as the OP. That is why I think after Windows 8 matures I might consider switching from the iPad to a windows 8 tablet or hybrid.

 

[CMacDonald]

Maybe it's just that 20 years with windows I find it to be too damn difficult to perform almost anything. Maybe it's because every new action I try on this thing requires another "app".

kippyw,

I got an iPad 2 about a year ago as well and, having been a PC user for decades, I was also frustrated with how the iPad worked - at first. But over time, I adapted to how it worked and while I still don't like how certain things work they way they do, the iPad became my Go-To device. I still have the PC and a netbook when I need better access or control from time to time but I use the iPad every day.

Suggestion: play with wild abandon! By messing around, I just now figured out how to quote other posts into my reply. Even so, posting this took a while due to 'bad thread' errors when I tried to edit the post using this app. :-D

One thing to get straight is that iPad is app-centric, not file-centric, so apps own files.

AQ_OC,

I wish the gang at the store where I bought the iPad told me that! That simple change in mindset explains a lot to this computer pro...

The absence of a file manager, due to extreme sandboxing, is what keeps your iPad safe from the malware that constantly attacks your PC. Inconvenience is the price of peace of mind. Ditto the lack of Flash.

LannyC,

That explanation is hands down the best & most concise explanation of the benefits of the iPad over Windows-based units. I'm learning RHEL Linux now and I do wonder if the SELinux (sandboxing) capabilities could give both Apple & Windows PCs a run for their money soon, especially if a company implemented a user-centric approach. Perhaps Chromebooks do this?

Nice to read about a fellow PC user when they first came out in '83. Had I been able to afford Apple's offerings when they first came out, perhaps I would have never used Windows at home.


Anyway, thanks everyone & happy holidays!


Sent from my 32 GB iPad 2 using the iPF app

 

[KevinJS]

Ah, the benefits of hindsight. When I started using Windows, it was by no means certain that Apple would even survive, let alone become the industry leader it has become. Would have saved me a fortune if I'd gone for Macs instead of PCs.

 

[CMacDonald]

Ah, the benefits of hindsight. When I started using Windows, it was by no means certain that Apple would even survive, let alone become the industry leader it has become. Would have saved me a fortune if I'd gone for Macs instead of PCs.

Having supported others users of the original Macintosh, I saw that Apple was lightyears ahead of PCs at that time. I would have LOVED to have been able to get my hands on their product line; however, I was a broke college student just about to graduate. While hindsight would have been helpful, but my particular issue was simply a very limited budget.

If a product or service is built better or operates with fewer issues, I'm a firm believer in paying a little more for it. Apple offers higher quality items but they do charge a premium for them - and rightly so because they WORK! I question if what people have spent over the long term was different if they had gone with Apple instead of Windows or vice-verse. Would make for an interesting study.

Sent from my 32 GB iPad 2 using iPF

 

[KevinJS]

Well, I have no way of knowing for sure, but I believe that buying Apple equipment from the outset would have saved me money in the long run, because I would have bought less of it. The useful life of Macs seems to be a lot longer than PCs.

Anyway, I won't be compounding my error. I'll be getting Macs in future. I've even managed to convince my wife that the new iMac is such a beautiful piece of equipment that it doesn't need to be hidden in a corner. Now if I can convince her to stop spending my Mac fund on other stuff, I might truly be getting somewhere.

Sent from my iPad using iPF

 

[Roy Rob]

I also agree that the iPad has changed the way I spend my day. I bought an iPad 2 for my wife last Christmas to replace her Kobo. I originally bought a Kindle Fire(?) but returned it because for a few bucks more the iPad 2 was way superior. By the time I had got hers all set up I knew I had to have one as well. I was a Windows soloist completely. Never even touched an Apple product. Now, in my opinion, a Windows tutorial should be called a crash course. It is tough at first to master the copy and paste techniques after the control you have with a mouse. In fact I always disabled the touch pad on every lap top I own and switch to a mouse for that reason, but once you master bringing up the little blue dots you can do whatever you want on an iPad.

 

[s2mikey]

I can understand the OPs frustrations but I've had almost the opposite experience. I assumed this would be mostly a consumption toy and game machine. It actually does all that very well but I'm surprised at some of the things I use it for other than that. QuickOffice allows me to create and edit office docs with good compatibility. We use a nice recipe app that's very easy to work with since it can sit right there in the kitchen with you. My daughter uses it for math practice and has actually been doing better in math since using the iPad for practice.

There are a few apple things that can annoy. No forward delete, no cursor placement arrows, and the spell correction can pick some ver interesting words for you. There are times when the impenetrable walled garden can stop you from doing something. But those small issue pale in comparison to all that it does well. I was never an apple guy either. Used them at work here and there but only when necessary. It's a good product line.

 

[tlbaker]

Well, I have no way of knowing for sure, but I believe that buying Apple equipment from the outset would have saved me money in the long run, because I would have bought less of it. The useful life of Macs seems to be a lot longer than PCs.

Anyway, I won't be compounding my error. I'll be getting Macs in future. I've even managed to convince my wife that the new iMac is such a beautiful piece of equipment that it doesn't need to be hidden in a corner. Now if I can convince her to stop spending my Mac fund on other stuff, I might truly be getting somewhere.

Sent from my iPad using iPF

This is good to know.

Sent from my WiFi Black 64GB iPad with Retina Display in NYC using iPF

 

[Frawick]

Well you better know how to turn sea shells into either a charger or an outlet otherwise you're screwed!!!

Just look for a current bush.

 

[titusc]

Well just tried to get a photo tagging software on my iPad 1 and bought the iPhoto. Spent a full day trying to use the iPhone Config Utility to install it but failed. Turned out issue was due to Apple doesn't have a compatibility mindset like Windows, which allows you to run pretty much any software on any version of OS.

 

[LannyC]

Compatibility? It's like trying to run Vista on the original PC, even one maxed out to 640K of RAM and a 10MB hard drive. Buy a newer iPad.

milliHelen: amount of beauty required to launch one ship.

 

[AQ_OC]

Well just tried to get a photo tagging software on my iPad 1 and bought the iPhoto. Spent a full day trying to use the iPhone Config Utility to install it but failed. Turned out issue was due to Apple doesn't have a compatibility mindset like Windows, which allows you to run pretty much any software on any version of OS.

There zillions of windows programs that won't run on windows 3.1, which is a desktop OS. MS doesn't even support that os anymore. Apple has never been one to support the old stuff. But the ipad 1 still runs any apps that were designed to run on it, but with only 256 MB, some apps just aren't going to run well. As a user, you need to pay attention to what software works best on your device.

 

[epb]

There zillions of windows programs that won't run on windows 3.1, which is a desktop OS. MS doesn't even support that os anymore. Apple has never been one to support the old stuff.

I thought Apple did support the old stuff, at least with PCs? The chief argument I always heard for Macs - stated in this very thread earlier - was the longer usable life since they didn't let their operating systems gets as bloated as Microsoft. It was supposedly why they were worth the premium they charged - you didn't have to replace them as often.

Personally, I see where the OP is coming from. I've adjusted and finagled things to work with my iPad 3 or Kindle Fire, but if I were doing serious work on the go - creating content rather than consuming it - I'd get a laptop. I like subnotebooks more than netbooks. Yes, people tout that they're quite productive on their iPads, but once you've added the keyboard case, external drive, etc - you spent as much, you're carrying as much, and you still can't keep up with a full-on notebook for power and productivity.