Ipads - worth it?

Glen_Lee

Glen_Lee

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Having preferred laptops, I'm now thinking of getting a tablet for the first time. Will be used general browsing, streaming and email.

I'm not an Apple user, and wonder if Ipads are worth the extra money. I have friends and colleagues who swear by them. Also considering MS Surface & Chrome OS on something like the Lenovo Duet.

Many thanks.
 
There's masses of value-add if you are plugged into the Apple ecosystem as it will act as a second screen for any other Apple device (like an iMac), you can handoff to it (so stop whatever it is you're doing on the computer and carry on while you walk around the house) and it can act as a HomeKit hub for home automation.

Since your predominant use sounds like you just want a small format laptop without a keyboard but with a touchscreen, I'd say no ...

Remind me, you've already got a Chromebook right? I'd say a (cheaper) Android tablet would be both more familiar and more use. Even without the rest of the Apple ecosystem around you, the iPad is a very excellent tablet but you're likely to underuse it significantly and/or get frustrated that the Apple apps will behave in ways that you're not used to.

Just checking ... email? Webmail or via an app? Not that it matters, just that the "everything in the browser" approach from ChromeOS is really sound for most people. I think you'd be a lot more at home with the Lenovo Duet.

If you were to go back towards a Microsoft machine, Surface is very nice to use and Windows 10 is quite mature now - you get the Edge browser (which is based on Chromium, the open source behind Chrome) and could easily do everything there. Windows is being left behind on the app front (nobody credible does old-style Win32 applications, it's iOS and Android for literally everything you buy now that you'd want to integrate and interface with from your portable computer), where a ChromeOS tablet will do the Android app (albeit from satisfactory to badly, in my experience of ChromeOS). If you were spending Surface money, I'd say go for an iPad instead.

Again, I think you'd be a lot more at home with the Lenovo Duet.

HTH.
 
pjgh said:
There's masses of value-add if you are plugged into the Apple ecosystem as it will act as a second screen for any other Apple device (like an iMac), you can handoff to it (so stop whatever it is you're doing on the computer and carry on while you walk around the house) and it can act as a HomeKit hub for home automation.

Since your predominant use sounds like you just want a small format laptop without a keyboard but with a touchscreen, I'd say no ...

Remind me, you've already got a Chromebook right? I'd say a (cheaper) Android tablet would be both more familiar and more use. Even without the rest of the Apple ecosystem around you, the iPad is a very excellent tablet but you're likely to underuse it significantly and/or get frustrated that the Apple apps will behave in ways that you're not used to.

Just checking ... email? Webmail or via an app? Not that it matters, just that the "everything in the browser" approach from ChromeOS is really sound for most people. I think you'd be a lot more at home with the Lenovo Duet.

If you were to go back towards a Microsoft machine, Surface is very nice to use and Windows 10 is quite mature now - you get the Edge browser (which is based on Chromium, the open source behind Chrome) and could easily do everything there. Windows is being left behind on the app front (nobody credible does old-style Win32 applications, it's iOS and Android for literally everything you buy now that you'd want to integrate and interface with from your portable computer), where a ChromeOS tablet will do the Android app (albeit from satisfactory to badly, in my experience of ChromeOS). If you were spending Surface money, I'd say go for an iPad instead.

Again, I think you'd be a lot more at home with the Lenovo Duet.

HTH.
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Thank you, Paul. As always super helpful & certainly put things into context.

I have no other Apple products, so an Ipad wouldn't complement a wider ecosystem. If anything, I use Google products everyday. Gmail, photos and Youtube.

Although I dont have a Chromebook myself, I have tried my father in laws & I was really impressed. One of the main factors thats important for me is a good battery life. Chrome devices seems to have.

I love the Duet's form factor, and the reviews are generally very positive. Decision made!
 
Glen_Lee said:
Thank you, Paul. As always super helpful & certainly put things into context.

I have no other Apple products, so an Ipad wouldn't complement a wider ecosystem. If anything, I use Google products everyday. Gmail, photos and Youtube.

Although I dont have a Chromebook myself, I have tried my father in laws & I was really impressed. One of the main factors thats important for me is a good battery life. Chrome devices seems to have.

I love the Duet's form factor, and the reviews are generally very positive. Decision made!
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Apple are class
some people love them some hate them but most of the haters haven’t had one.
Anyway the thing about apple is no anti virus software and the operating system will just be as fast in 10 years time.
ipads are super however iv your just browsing and emails & stuff then the samsung tablets are cheaper.
Ease of use on all apple products is brilliant
everything is so simple & remember apple were the first with these products so ever else is just a clone
 
Glen_Lee said:
Thank you, Paul. As always super helpful & certainly put things into context.

I have no other Apple products, so an Ipad wouldn't complement a wider ecosystem. If anything, I use Google products everyday. Gmail, photos and Youtube.

Although I dont have a Chromebook myself, I have tried my father in laws & I was really impressed. One of the main factors thats important for me is a good battery life. Chrome devices seems to have.

I love the Duet's form factor, and the reviews are generally very positive. Decision made!
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That's right ... yeah, you were asking for FIL in previous posts. Clicked into the googlesphere, yes, ChromeOS is the way to go and there are many good options. But, chuff me! That Pixel Slate is expensive! Talk about asking Porsche price for a Vauxhall!

Check out Asus, too, as they have a detachable screen version of one of their flip Chromebooks. I like ASUS. I have an ASUS C223 Chromebook which is cheap and cheerful, but absolutely what I want as I type a lot and absolutely have to have a keyboard attached to a screen with a rigid hinge.
 
Mike Smart said:
Apple are class
some people love them some hate them but most of the haters haven’t had one.
Anyway the thing about apple is no anti virus software and the operating system will just be as fast in 10 years time.
ipads are super however iv your just browsing and emails & stuff then the samsung tablets are cheaper.
Ease of use on all apple products is brilliant
everything is so simple & remember apple were the first with these products so ever else is just a clone
Click to expand...
I absolutely concur, being most definitely an "Apple first" kinda fellow who gets very frustrated at the lack of feature, polish and integration with other brands. Where I've picked a Chromebook, I know what it does and know why I wanted it. I'm typing on one now ... I picked a cheap device that is a screen and keyboard with a rigid hinge that just runs a browser. I picked that over an iPad as all I want it to do is browse. Ensuring your technologies are cloud and browser compliant is the key.

Computers are changing in a big way at the moment as traditional desktop operating systems are becoming less and less relevant. We do most things through our phones (apart from taking actual calls, oddly) from messaging to note taking to browsing to buying to setting up the latest home automation gizmo. Microsoft are very much lagging behind and I really can't see a need for Windows 10 above and beyond opening up a browser, as the apps are sorely lacking and/or retarded. Their cloud platform is available from everything else. They're ripe for a ChromeOS type release, but been there before with Windows S and RT.

Apple on the other hand are moving their operating systems closer together with each step yet retaining relevance and fitness for purpose, from watchOS to iOS to ipadOS to macOS. Monterey is sheer class!
 
pjgh said:
I absolutely concur, being most definitely an "Apple first" kinda fellow who gets very frustrated at the lack of feature, polish and integration with other brands. Where I've picked a Chromebook, I know what it does and know why I wanted it. I'm typing on one now ... I picked a cheap device that is a screen and keyboard with a rigid hinge that just runs a browser. I picked that over an iPad as all I want it to do is browse. Ensuring your technologies are cloud and browser compliant is the key.

Computers are changing in a big way at the moment as traditional desktop operating systems are becoming less and less relevant. We do most things through our phones (apart from taking actual calls, oddly) from messaging to note taking to browsing to buying to setting up the latest home automation gizmo. Microsoft are very much lagging behind and I really can't see a need for Windows 10 above and beyond opening up a browser, as the apps are sorely lacking and/or retarded. Their cloud platform is available from everything else. They're ripe for a ChromeOS type release, but been there before with Windows S and RT.

Apple on the other hand are moving their operating systems closer together with each step yet retaining relevance and fitness for purpose, from watchOS to iOS to ipadOS to macOS. Monterey is sheer class!
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yeah i think your right
iv had an iphone since day one yet i never ever wanted an apple computer.
i bought my son an imac in 2012 and he still uses it today and it’s still as fast, that would never happen with any windows system.
i was always a windows guy until 4 years ago
i was buying a new laptop and my wife persuaded me to go for a Macbook Pro which was three times the price,
However i haven’t looked back and if i ever need a new laptop or i’ll get one for the sake of it then it’s Apple all the way.
i have to say i don’t know enough about chrome books to comment
 
I've been with Apple since the early-1990s when I bought a Macintosh 512K to write my University dissertation upon. I bought an iMac in 1997 when they brought out the DV model with a DVD player, which was a very plush thing to watch on its digital screen. iMacs have been my main computer since. I've had cheap/old laptops running Linux for knocking around the house and could never really justify a MacBook ... or even an iPad. I do have an iPhone and use it absolutely to the edge of its capabilities - always got Notes open, Home (most of my home automation is HomeKit compatible), it's my wallet and comms device via Teams, Meet, Messenger, Alexa, whatever ... oddly, rarely actually the phone.

The trick today is about getting the right cloud to support what it is that you do ... and it's about a LOT more than just online storage. iCloud, for example, offers integration with Apple Secure Video for home camera recordings processed on your home hub and encrypted up to the cloud. What happens in your home stays in your home, even if it's in the cloud. Other devices with their apps offload to clouds that you have no control or protection over. Just one example, unique to Apple.

We don't really make "files" like we used to. We can do quick spreadsheets and word processing online more easily that opening an application, store on your cloud but notes of mixed media (text, audio, pictures, video) are far more relevant. We don't really do files now. Our music and film collections in MP3 and H.264 are fast becoming redundant as more and more online services off literally the entire back catalogue of everything you'd want to listen to or watch. What actual files do we have left? What do we still store on our PCs, so to speak?

If not now, it will certainly become that way VERY quickly for the vast majority of people.

Find the ecosystem that works for you, find the cloud solution to support that and the device is far less important, but absolutely comes into its own when that ecosystem is fully exploited. So, back to @Glen_Lee and a potential Chromebook/Tablet purchase, the googlesphere offers really good integration with, say, the Google TV pack (Chromecast with remote control, like an Amazon FireTV) and/or Nest Hub/Assisant devices.
 
pjgh said:
The trick today is about getting the right cloud to support what it is that you do ... and it's about a LOT more than just online storage. iCloud, for example, offers integration with Apple Secure Video for home camera recordings processed on your home hub and encrypted up to the cloud. What happens in your home stays in your home, even if it's in the cloud. Other devices with their apps offload to clouds that you have no control or protection over. Just one example, unique to Apple.
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Isn't this just an overly broad generalisation?
If it's in the cloud, it isn't in only your home anymore. Even if it's encrypted, large and successful companies have nasty security breaches before and they'll have them in the future.
If you Home Hub dies, do you lose the ability to read the files altogether because the keys are stored there?
 
You can move the HomeKit hub around from device to device ... or have more than one, say, an AppleTV and a HomePod and an iPad. Encryption is by virtue of your iCloud identity ... just as Google do with encrypting Chromebooks. Yes, encryption can be broken; not least when some quantum leap in processing is made. All that encrypted traffic we thought was safe, all captured by intelligence spooks and squirrelled away for that very future moment will just be opened in seconds.

I'd also say, if it's connected (regardless of home/cloud wherever) ... connected, it's "in the cloud". Security is as strong as the weakest link in the chain, so getting in via a poorly configured random name camera with unofficial protocols running and then talking through that to, say, Alexa to then open up whatever the hacker wants ... it's all possible.

But yes, my point was about finding an ecosystem and cloud provision that suits what it is you do. I'm very little about actual files (although what I do have are all in the iCloud ecosystem either as files, but more likely as Apple Notes), big on photographs (Apple Photo ... again, iCloud), less so on music, even less so about movies ... a lot about home automation, for which HomeKit and iCloud really suits me. While I do have a Chromebook, I have literally nowt in Google Cloud but do serve out my SOTD pictures and other miscelleanous stuff for forums from Google Photos. For many folks, Facebook is ideal for communication, that gargantuan photo storage and for communication and collaboration, written, voice or video. Google have all that, too. Amazon do. Apple do, but iCloud+ is offering the next step beyond simple storage with some presently unique features.
 
pjgh said:
You can move the HomeKit hub around from device to device ... or have more than one, say, an AppleTV and a HomePod and an iPad. Encryption is by virtue of your iCloud identity ... just as Google do with encrypting Chromebooks. Yes, encryption can be broken; not least when some quantum leap in processing is made. All that encrypted traffic we thought was safe, all captured by intelligence spooks and squirrelled away for that very future moment will just be opened in seconds.

I'd also say, if it's connected (regardless of home/cloud wherever) ... connected, it's "in the cloud". Security is as strong as the weakest link in the chain, so getting in via a poorly configured random name camera with unofficial protocols running and then talking through that to, say, Alexa to then open up whatever the hacker wants ... it's all possible.

But yes, my point was about finding an ecosystem and cloud provision that suits what it is you do. I'm very little about actual files (although what I do have are all in the iCloud ecosystem either as files, but more likely as Apple Notes), big on photographs (Apple Photo ... again, iCloud), less so on music, even less so about movies ... a lot about home automation, for which HomeKit and iCloud really suits me. While I do have a Chromebook, I have literally nowt in Google Cloud but do serve out my SOTD pictures and other miscelleanous stuff for forums from Google Photos. For many folks, Facebook is ideal for communication, that gargantuan photo storage and for communication and collaboration, written, voice or video. Google have all that, too. Amazon do. Apple do, but iCloud+ is offering the next step beyond simple storage with some presently unique features.
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You don't need to break the encryption, just steal the encryption keys from any of the devices they're on. Do they reside only on the devices the HomeKit hub is on?
Is there really no actual decent alternative, or does everyone just grab random stuff from AliExpress or some such?

IMO, it doesn't matter what cloud storage you end up using, though. The case is valid for all of them - it's only reasonably secure if you control the encryption keys and can be sure they don't get piped through someone's servers just to make synchronising devices easy.

pjgh said:
I'd also say, if it's connected (regardless of home/cloud wherever) ... connected, it's "in the cloud".
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What does "connected" actually mean in this context?


Mind you, I'm sharing some stuff over the Internet as well, usually using Google's cloud storage, but it's generally stuff I don't care too much about (mostly random photos).
I find most cloud-based products running the client in a browser suffice for a lot of basic things, but for more than that, I find them rather lacking (particularly performance-wise), although they are getting better every year.
 
More on topic - I'd avoid Android tablets, with a few exceptions, because they generally only get updates for a year or two (if they get any at all).
I think Samsung committed to a 3 or 4 year support period for some of their latest tablets, but that's from device launch, not purchase date.
Amazon updates theirs occasionally from what I noticed, but I don't think there's anything official from them about it.

iPads fare better when it comes to OS support length, so that might be a reason to get one if you'd want a pure tablet.

Chromebooks (at least the x86_64 based ones) should be getting updates just as well, though, so I reckon @Glen_Lee could be happy with his choice for a few years.
 
jimmyc said:
I have a laptop, an i7 plenty fast enough for most things except the most demanding games.
I also have a 10 inch Samsung android tablet, most of my time is spent on the tablet.
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Iv just bought an Alienware i7 for gaming only and i’ll use my Macbook for everything else.
What do you mean i7 is ok apart from the most demanding games ?
i Thought the i7 was the best ?
 

HomeKit data security

HomeKit data can be securely updated between a user’s iPhone, iPad and Mac devices using iCloud and iCloud keychain.
support.apple.com

HomeKit communication security

HomeKit provides a home automation infrastructure that uses iCloud and iOS, iPadOS and macOS security to protect and sync private data.
support.apple.com

Apple Platform Security

Learn how security is implemented in Apple hardware, software, apps and services.
support.apple.com

Yes, the alternative is this - to use Apple Secure Video with HomeKit compatible devices and NOT the random app that the device comes with. Eufy cameras, for example.

Don't confuse data breaches which reveal username and password combinations that can compromise accounts on cloud storage with a breach (rooting) of the actual cloud platform - if that was to happen, it would simply be game over for the company: Microsoft, Google, Amazon or Apple. But yes, that's not to say it won't happen.
 
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