Funny, I must be getting slow in my dotage, but only yesterday did it dawn on me that after so many years trying to find the perfect desktop replacement laptop I now have a desktop plus a laptop replacement tablet. The iPad Pro 11" does everything I need when away from the fixed desk setup (Mac mini). I never would have guessed that it would end up this way, I was always looking towards laptops becoming more tablet-like (e.g. Surface Pro), not a true tablet taking over any need for a laptop.
I’ve been using laptops as a desktop replacement since an Everex 386SX desktop in 1990 +/-? It was always the question “Can a laptop replace a desktop?” which as you say morphed into “Can a tablet replace a laptop?” Now for me, I want the tablet to be THE computer so I’m on that track now.
You are right - my iPP11 can do a lot of what I need when away from my laptop - now the question is can I change my workflow enough to make it my primary computer, and I think that is in the cards.
I would pretty much already be there if not for my love of games. If only devs took the iPP seriously enough to port over stuff like Stellaris and the upcoming Baldur’s Gate 3 (which has an Apple Silicon native version for Mac). And app devs such as the Ulysses folks need to make the iPP versions as capable as Mac ones, too (e.g. inclusion of export template editing).
I’m convinced this is going to come - the movement towards the iPad as a sole computing platform for many users is going to mean the developers will have to adapt or miss that market.
My son, the law professor, says he’s surprised by the number of students who use an iPad as their sole computing device. Of course, that is a very limited database, and I could easily see an iPad being a law student’s sole computer because you need a research tool (Westlaw/Lexis), digital textbooks, note taking, and text editing (Word). They’re not drafting large treatises or even briefs, so the iPad Pro, especially the 12.9” could be their sole computer.
I mentioned it on the old board but I once did a 2-year paralegal degree (never led to employment ’cause I couldn’t take the pay cut at that time). I was the novelty of the courthouse as I went though security with my PowerBook 180 laptop and set up shop in the basement law library to do research. Nobody else ever showed up with a laptop at the courthouse or classroom. Anyway, the work included writing lots of briefs so if I could graduate top of class with 4.0 GPA using that ancient piece of tech there’s no question that today’s law students can get by with an iPP.
Once tainted by a legal degree, always tainted my friend - welcome to the profession! It also explains you edgy sense of humor.
Back to the subject at hand - I would have KILLED for this iPP11 when I was in law school - of course long before we even had PC’s in our lives. That’s why I think if I can just redirect this fossil’s muscle memory, the iPad Pro with iPadOS 16 can be my sole device - the real question is whether it should be if the MBP14 is so much more robust and full featured?
I think I’ve told this before but for the non-legal community it explains a lot. One of my classmates, a mother of two small children, mentioned that when she left the house the morning of the bar exam she saw that someone had driven in to their mailbox breaking the concrete and the box was leaning - her concern wasn’t how was she going to get this repaired while tied up all week on the exam; nor the safety of her kids playing on the sidewalk near it; but whether the mailman might try to deliver her mail and somehow get injured and sue her - how’s that for warping perspectives…
Multiple windows of Office 365 apps - not happy on this point yet, because we’re on Beta 3 and still not fixed - to open more than one instance of Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc. you still have to turn off Stage Manager, load the various docs, then restart Stage Manager, as demonstrated in Fernando Silva’s Youtube on Beta 1
Now, before @bronsky or @bishop say it - YES, the lowly Surface Go could do all this years ago - but where is MS on the general tablet interface and applications -
I haven’t tried this, but doesn’t OneDrive iOS with Office 365 subscription allow you to keep all files offline on the iPad? Or is the problem that it doesn’t do that in the background?
The problem is no full on device storage. You can “download” individual files, but if you want local copies of everything it doesn’t work (neither does iCloud or Dropbox) because iPadOS still does not have a real hierarchical file system, not even iPadOS 16 beta. When I’m out and about I don’t want to have to worry whether I need to connect to the cloud to open a client file; I want it right their on the device.
What I mean is that inside the OneDrive iOS app you can mark entire folders as “keep offline” (requires O365 subscription). You can then open files “from there” into Word etc. So you’d never use the iOS file system, just use the OneDrive folder structure. Not sure if it can reliably keep folders offline in the background though, I haven’t tried.
Well, this is going to be a slow test, because I’m having to upload my offline iCloud files on the MBP14 (which is always in sync with iCloud) and then see if I can download those to the iPad through the OneDrive App…
You are correct that Windows’ effort to develop a tablet interface has been underwhelming. Nevertheless, I do just fine with the interface we have. I just never found it all that unworkable. I think I’m starting year 3 on the Go2.
I just hope three years from now I don’t look back and say - “Why didn’t I just follow @Bronsky with a Surface Go 3?” I don’t think so, but it’s going to be a harder row to hoe than you’ve plowed (how’s that for mixing metaphors)…
Maybe test it with a single folder first, just to see if it keeps track of changes while the onedrive app is in the background. It might be that it checks only when the app is in the foreground.
Right now I’m uploading my Client file tree to OneDrive (good backup source anyway) and will down load one client folder with a few sub folders and test it with a few edits and new files to see ho well they stay backed up at both locations. My guess is it wil be overwhelmed, but keeping fingers crossed.
I think @Bronsky’s comment above is wearing on my psyche…
