Not impressed

[AdmiralAdama]

When spending several hundred dollars for a personal electronic device, you owe it to yourself to research the product thoroughly, to ensure it's what you really want.

AA

 

[RAC]

The iPad does the job 95% of the time but it's frustrating when you want to access a web site that won't work on the iPad. I find the lack of physical connectivity and file manager limiting as well.

With price and battery life constantly heading in the right direction, I think that ultra books could eat into the tablet market in the near future.

 

[hpowders]

OMG - not this again! :thumbsdown: This has been discussed (AND explained) to death! Forget Flash - it's a dead issue!

The OP mentioned the lack of Flash Player in his opening post. All I was doing was agreeing with him.

 

[hpowders]

The iPad will be improved with each successive generation. One day there will be few complaints.

 

[Seadog]

I got married, but she turned out to be just like most humans and would not cater to my every whim. Marriage is a failure and no one should get married. God should not have made them so emotional, or where they need makeup. And what is with this monthly problem wth them?

 

[Bob Maxey]

OMG - not this again! :thumbsdown: This has been discussed (AND explained) to death! Forget Flash - it's a dead issue!

To the OP - and for other potential purchasers reading this thread, please BEFORE buying an iPad, review the specifications of the device carefully - this is NOT a laptop computer, but will replace many of its needs BUT not all! The iPad complements your other computer needs and can substitute many of those functions (not ALL!) - figure out how to integrate the iPad into your life - as an example, I traveled w/ a laptop for years (mainly to check our email & the web on the road) - the iPad w/ the BT keyboard and local Wi-Fi has replaced my laptop for THOSE purposes (and is much easier to carry and check through an airport) - if you hate the iPad, then give it to your younger generation relatives; I'm sure that they will have a great time w/ the device -

To be as fair as possible, that does not always work. I'll give you one example: WiFi printing.

I write for food and wine and bike parts and I obtained my iPad to take the show on the road. I read about Pages. I understood the iPad to be a mobile device and wireless. Apple told me through advertising and their web site that Pages was a great word processor. Their web site played up the wireless printing aspects of the device. I read the Apple site and I looked before I took the leap.

What was not immediately apparent was the fact that I could not print wirelessly to my specific printer; I could only print to one of the eleven WiFi printers made by HP.

I assumed that printing would be effortless and my brand stinking new WiFi printer would work. I bought my WiFi printer then I bought my iPad. To get it to print, I had to install a paid application from the App Store. I came to be the most beloved member of IPF while trying to find a way to make my printer work with my iPad.

I agree . . one should do his or her due diligence but I also agree with Bob Maxey: when a company promotes a portable device, plays up the great WP applications and aims the device at businesses that will likely need to print, the company should make the limitations a tad more clear. Sometimes, you can do research and end up with a device that is not what you think it is.

 

[Bob Maxey]

When spending several hundred dollars for a personal electronic device, you owe it to yourself to research the product thoroughly, to ensure it's what you really want.

AA

I just researched a report from a company called "Crittercism." Apparently, iOS is buggy and it crashes far more than our beloved Android. My research indicates that iOS is worse than Android. I found fifty plus pages of Google results telling me this is a fact. Do I believe it? The reports come from a company selling SDKs to alert Crittercism every time an application crashes, so how can one doubt the conclusion: if you want stability and fewer issues, go Android, not iOS.

From the many, many reports:

"

Surprisingly, Crittercism’s data (gathered from more than 214 million app launches between November and December of 2011) shows that apps on iOS crashed much more frequently than comparable apps on Android. Just take a look at that pie graph. It’s easily dominated by iOS, covering nearly 75% of total crashes. Yup. I was just as blown away as you. Numbers don’t lie."

I am all for research, but it is not always enough. Sometimes, you need to add a purchase to your research and then return the device if it does not do what you think it will do.

​

 

[AdmiralAdama]

I just researched a report from a company called "Crittercism." Apparently, iOS is buggy and it crashes far more than our beloved Android. My research indicates that iOS is worse than Android. I found fifty plus pages of Google results telling me this is a fact. Do I believe it? The reports come from a company selling SDKs to alert Crittercism every time an application crashes, so how can one doubt the conclusion: if you want stability and fewer issues, go Android, not iOS.

From the many, many reports:

"Surprisingly, Crittercism’s data (gathered from more than 214 million app launches between November and December of 2011) shows that apps on iOS crashed much more frequently than comparable apps on Android. Just take a look at that pie graph. It’s easily dominated by iOS, covering nearly 75% of total crashes. Yup. I was just as blown away as you. Numbers don’t lie."

I am all for research, but it is not always enough. Sometimes, you need to add a purchase to your research and then return the device if it does not do what you think it will do.

You're right. If the product doesn't perform as expected after researching it, get a refund.

As for numbers that don't lie, I'm unfamiliar with Crittercisms methodology so I won't throw a rock.

But my job is to analyze economic / financial data, and interpret it per a clients request. In 36 years I've never encountered data, private or public sector, that couldn't be manipulated to obtain a desired outcome. The canvass is blank. You paint the picture you want. I know because I do it. You can look at identical data from multiple angles and reach different conclusions. The final result is the one the client is paying for.

I do know this. My adult daughter has a Samsung Galaxy II and her Android apps crash or glitch with such frequency, I need to pick up some drywall for her place. My iPhone 4 (got it the week it launched) runs efficiently - and I experience few app crashes. My iPad 2, which I've owned since August, performs just as well. If find Safari browser a bit twitchy, but not objectionable. At least for my purposes.

AA

 

[Bob Maxey]

You're right. If the product doesn't perform as expected after researching it, get a refund.

As for numbers that don't lie, I'm unfamiliar with Crittercisms methodology so I won't throw a rock.

But my job is to analyze economic / financial data, and interpret it per a clients request. In 36 years I've never encountered data, private or public sector, that couldn't be manipulated to obtain a desired outcome. The canvass is blank. You paint the picture you want. I know because I do it. You can look at identical data from multiple angles and reach different conclusions. The final result is the one the client is paying for.

I do know this. My adult daughter has a Samsung Galaxy II and her Android apps crash or glitch with such frequency, I need to pick up some drywall for her place. My iPhone 4 (got it the week it launched) runs efficiently - and I experience few app crashes. My iPad 2, which I've owned since August, performs just as well. If find Safari browser a bit twitchy, but not objectionable. At least for my purposes.

AA

Somewhere between selling Megahertz Corporation to U.S. Robots then to 3Com and finally to MSL, we had to explain our data gathering methodology. We had to explain how we interpreted our data. Those that were buying us wanted to confirm our numbers and it was a very serious effort to capture as much data as possible. We had to look at who used the smoking area and how many times they passed through one area into another. We had to look at every employee and put a value on their contribution. We had to move crap that went directly from the production line to rework. In other words, we build it, fail it, and send it to rework where they tried to fix it and quite often, stored it away in a little room. We discovered that people were hired to repair these devices, but they were discontinued long ago.

We hid things like that from the new buyers so the buyers would not ask why 250,000 or so units--some still being reworked, yet discontinued a year before--were stored in the old part of the building. Later, someone discovered that you can look at the number of PC Board we purchased and compare that number to how many we shipped. There was a serious investigation because we were only shipping something like 40% of the products we supposedly built. Without data, we would never had known.

At the time, this data collection was a serious priority and scary because careful study showed us to be very bad at what we did. Or that is what the data would lead you to believe. Most of us still did a great job. But we could not hide from the data.

In one case, we were having huge production run pass rates. We were successfully passing huge numbers of modems through test with a 98% (or so, I forget) success rate. Far too many; at the time, we knew something was going on because we did not always get it right. One particular supervisor wanted our test programs modified because his crap was being failed.

What we found out later was modems manufactured on production lines with the highest numbers were being returned to RMA. In some cases, modems went through test and into shipping and returned to us not long after the customer discovered connection problem. RMA started telling us that they were seeing modems without PC Boards inside the cases or failures caused by integrated chips put on wrong, or resistors/capacitors missing or traces routed at the edge of the board.

I still have a modem I used for training. It had almost every component replaced several times. The Rockwell chip sets were replaced half a dozen times. Parts were added to pads that should not have been added and pads on this board were gone; it is what happens when you re-solder a connection multiple times. I calculated the shop time and cost of components and it was a multi-thousand dollar modem. The problem was damaged traces at the edge of the board. These issues came to light when we delved into the data. And it was one of hundreds of products that cost us thousands to build and sold for a fifty bucks at the time.

When these issues were brought to light, suddenly, good numbers were suspect, and rightly so. When you make 500 units and 450 units are returned, suddenly, your production lines look incompetent. And rightly so.

I sometimes think some of the most scariest things can be found lurking in the data. Like comparing RMA numbers to test pass rates. My problem was I always overlooked something and I had problems discovering what was buried in the data. I was not a trained in data analysis. We were likely worse than we/I thought. Or perhaps better.

 

[AdmiralAdama]

Scary data. That's why they hire us to chase away the bogeyman. AA

 

[Billee]

OMG - not this again! :thumbsdown: This has been discussed (AND explained) to death! Forget Flash - it's a dead issue!

To the OP - and for other potential purchasers reading this thread, please BEFORE buying an iPad, review the specifications of the device carefully - this is NOT a laptop computer, but will replace many of its needs BUT not all! The iPad complements your other computer needs and can substitute many of those functions (not ALL!) - figure out how to integrate the iPad into your life - as an example, I traveled w/ a laptop for years (mainly to check our email & the web on the road) - the iPad w/ the BT keyboard and local Wi-Fi has replaced my laptop for THOSE purposes (and is much easier to carry and check through an airport) - if you hate the iPad, then give it to your younger generation relatives; I'm sure that they will have a great time w/ the device -

If Flash is a dead issue why am I unable to view so many Flash-based websites?

 

[Bob Maxey]

If Flash is a dead issue why am I unable to view so many Flash-based websites?

You need the proper program to view Flash and it does not exist. Steve Jobs made a very public statement as to why Flash will never be available for iOS. Adobe has stopped all Flash mobile development so they will not do it. HTML5 is on the way and Flash is on the way out. What else ya wanna know?

 

[DrHouse]

Disappointment... One expecting his wishes to be fulfilled...

The problem is that people are expecting a lot more than what the iPad can do. Same goes with other devices, softwares, hardwares, etc... As a software developer, I had to face customer disappointment so often because people are expecting that if they think it's possible, it must be and should be provided for the same cost.

Getting someone to do things differently is another major issue. Having access to the file system, as it is possible on other OSes is being expected since this was the way for such a long time. IOS does provide another way of dealing with files. It may not be perfect, but does solve a lot of issues at the same time. How many times I had to explain "folders" to my family, how to save a file in the right place for later retrieval or simply how to search for a particular file. The iOS approach simplifies this. So my mom does not have to figure out where her documents are saved, they are in the application, pictures are in Photos, music is in Music... It may be limiting, but does make file management disappear...

The issue is not that the device is limited, but the user not adapting to the features of the device. The "way to do it" is often simpler because that's how the iPad was designed. Even if the iPad is technically able to do more, the philosophy design has it's reasons for being that way.

I do own a Playbook which is able to render flash based content. Overall, it's working quite well, but does trigger issues when browsing the web. Scrolling web pages are frustrating as the swipe gesture will not work on the flash applet since it can be interpreted by flash as a scroll movement for the flash content. So to scroll the page, you need to find a spot in the web page to scroll all of the content that is not a flash applet. And some pages are simply unusable since they are filled with flash based ads... Performances is another issue, where flash content can freeze the web page rendering, up to a point of even closing the tab web page is hard to do.

The Playbook is providing a set of folders to store your images, musics and documents like the "My documents" folder in Windows. This is a nice approach as you can store your music in a single folder. But at the same time, I'm pretty sure that my mom would be confused by a new app that needs to save a document and she would have to choose the right folder and would probably select the root folder or music folder because she does not know what to do. I much prefer the Playbook approach for my needs, but I do understand that the iOS approach eliminates the question of "where to save it?".

There are reasons for the iOS implementation, good and bad ones. But complaining that it does not meet your expectations and that the product is crap will not solve your problems. Simply adapt to the product or just move on to another one.

For my part, I consider myself as a power user. No other product can provide me with tons of quality apps. No other products can provide an ecosystem where my cell phone, my tablet and my TV can interact together (AirPlay, same account, iMessage, find my phone, etc..). No other products can provide a consistent experience between my tablet, my cell phone and my tv. It's not a perfect world, but it does provide more features and functionalities than what the competition has to offer. For what it can do, it's amazing, for what it cannot do, I move on...

My 2 cents!

VicoPad addict!

 

[AdmiralAdama]

What the Doc says. 100%.

AA

 

[s2mikey]

I think part of the problem is that the expectations and device capabilities aren't always understood or fully researched by potential buyers and that Apple may not make all of the limitations as obvious as they could. Apple is a business and wants to sell iPads, just like android based devices want to sell their stuff. Both sides will highlight their strengths and make sure their weaknesses are in the fine print. It's just the way of things.

I don't blame Apple or any other company when they do this. The own-ness is on the buyers and sometimes we don't fully investigate items enough. Many of the iPads weaknesses are fairly well known. However, that doesn't make them an less frustrating.

I was new to Apple products and my iPad2 is my first and only Apple device. I made sure I knew what I was getting into. That being said, it wasn't until I owned the device that a few of the other quirks and annoyances came to light. I'm happy overall though.

Good luck to the OP.