M1 iPad Pro 11”

Post #439,539 by pwhysall 7/31/21 10:15:01 AM 7/31/21 10:15:01 AM Reply	M1 iPad Pro 11” Needed a new device oriented towards content consumption, and thus a tablet to which I can occasionally attach a keyboard (rather than a laptop from which I can remove the keyboard) seemed to be the ticket. I’ve had a few Android tablets - Nexus 7, Kindle Fire HD 10, etc. - and frankly they’re just Not Very Good. It’s an unpalatable truth that, if you’ve got the dolla dolla bills, Apple is the only game in town for tablets for anything other than the most lightweight duties. I wanted the 120Hz screen and the LiDAR scanner (features not available in the lower-tier iPad SKUs), so it was a toss-up between the 11” and 12.9” Pro models. The screen is the only difference between the two - the 12.9” gets the miniLED backlight and higher peak brightness when displaying HDR content. They’re both 120Hz. The 12.9” is freakin’ hyarge, and it’s also £250 more. 11” it is, then, with the black magic keyboard. Got it this morning, and it’s pretty darn sweet. Screen is absolutely top-class; bright and crisp and the lighting is very, very even. The four-way speaker system sounds unfeasibly good for its size, with more and better bass than any device this thin has any right to emit. Setup was trivially easy, because I’ve got an iPhone (you just bring it close to the iPad, and it signs you in and offers to transfer/restore data by various means, or not at all. This thing is so, so fast. Everything is instant. There’s no interface lag, ever. The 120Hz screen means animations are buttery smooth. To test the LiDAR Scanner, I made a 3D model of my living room, using the Forge app. It was astounding. If it sounds like I’m gushing, well. I am, a bit. There are niggles. The magic keyboard (which is very good btw, and if you do any amount of typing on an iPad, I’d recommend it) only has a charging port on one side. There’s no ESC key. There’s no App Library, so I have to make folders and sort my apps myself, like a peasant.One fifth of the way through the twenty-first century, and I still can’t put an app icon anywhere I want. Widgets are still a bit limited, and have to live in this annoying “Today” thing that only exists on the first screen. Hopefully iPadOS 15 will fix this. Overall though, it’s a tremendous device.
Post #439,540 by Another Scott 7/31/21 3:42:35 PM 7/31/21 3:42:35 PM Reply	Thanks for the review. The M1 really is an astounding bit of hardware. It's great that Apple is using some of its bazillions to advance CPUs beyond what x86 has saddled the world with for so long. I had an iPad v1 and still have several Samsung tablets around (mainly showing the weather). But for doing much of anything beyond looking at the screen, I still prefer laptops. Multitasking even as simple as cut-and-paste is so very annoying on a tablet (or phone for that matter). I had a Fujitsu P-Series Lifebook that was an amazing, but spendy, little laptop. I hope that someone, somewhere, is thinking about bringing back things like that - the idea that every laptop needs a 15-16" 16x9 screen is an abomination. Cheers, Scott.
Post #439,543 by InThane 7/31/21 9:51:42 PM 7/31/21 9:51:42 PM Reply	It makes me feel a little bad for AMD. They finally get their shit together and make a chip that beats the shit out of Intel, and what happens? Apple steals their thunder. Ceterum autem censeo pars Republican esse delendam.
Post #439,544 by a6l6e6x 7/31/21 10:22:34 PM 7/31/21 10:22:34 PM Reply	Amen to that! My wife has been talking about upgrading her old iPad to one that's recent and this may be a good choice. Alex "There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge." -- Isaac Asimov
Post #439,545 by malraux 7/31/21 10:25:56 PM 7/31/21 10:25:56 PM Reply	I love a 16" laptop screen Crummy eyes and a job programming though. Regards, -scott Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson.
Post #439,554 by static 8/2/21 3:42:11 AM 8/2/21 3:42:11 AM Reply	I'm going to get crucified, know it... But I thought Windows 8 had huge potential. As a touch-screen table OS, I found it a refreshing re-thinking, if somewhat incomplete in implementation. Unfortunately, one thing it did not have going for it was that it was made by Microsoft - who listens when a lot of their customers tell them they thought it was shit. :-/ Largely because most of them demanded an incremental but noticeable improvement over Windows 7 instead of something new and innovative. Wade.
Post #439,555 by drook 8/2/21 7:52:02 AM 8/2/21 7:52:02 AM Reply	Why would you get crucified? Your review is essentially, "Someone had a bold, new idea. But Microsoft being Microsoft, the committeed it until it was just bad enough that it got enough bad coverage that the old guard was able to kill it." They're good at basically 3 things: 1) Backwards compatibility 2) Copying successful products that someone else did 3) Lock-in -- Drew
Post #439,557 by pwhysall 8/2/21 9:15:12 AM 8/2/21 9:15:12 AM Reply	They're good at a whole lot more than that, of course Gaming, cloud services, consultancy, security (yes really, look at how they've taken down botnets), etc. Also the whole "making a metric shitload of money, despite everyone apparently hating their products for nearly half a century" thing. Windows 8 was bold, and I liked it a lot. But it was such a massive change in a market that is better suited to a more incremental approach. Shit, we all know those older relatives who lost their shit when IE got a slightly different icon. Windows 8 basically caused them to spontaneously combust.
Post #439,560 by drook 8/2/21 10:13:24 AM 8/2/21 10:13:24 AM Reply	I meant things that they're better at than anyone else There are lots of companies good at gaming, services, etc. What they're uniquely good at - what makes them that metric shitload of money - are the three I mentioned. The compatibility and lock-in alone pretty much define the corporate hegemony. -- Drew
Post #439,561 by pwhysall 8/2/21 10:46:27 AM 8/2/21 10:47:37 AM Reply	OK Backwards compatibility - they're definitely good at it, but I'm not sure how much money it makes them. People get Game Pass to play the latest games, and the X360 and OG XB games are just a nice to have. Yeah, Windows runs on some old-ass hardware, but there's shots fired in Windows 11 - TPM2.0 or fuck off, no W11 for YUO! The other products copying thing - you sure? Their big moneyspinner is Windows and services built on Windows, like Azure. And whilst Windows has got roots in VMS, it's not that similar, especially once you step outside the kernel itself. Office is mostly home-grown (and they make an absolute fuckload out of 365, btw) although they did buy PowerPoint. Lock-in - yeah but nah but yeah but nah. I know what you're driving at, but I honestly think you're only as locked-in as you want to be, in 2021. Ten years ago this was an absolute given, but things have moved on. There are whole businesses running on Google Docs now, frinstance. You don't have to guess at what makes MS's money. You can just go look. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/Investor/earnings/FY-2021-Q4/press-release-webcast (Aside: Azure is up 46%. That's only 46%. You know you're in bizarro-world when 46% growth is the lowest it's ever been, and thus a disappointment) Edited by pwhysall Aug. 2, 2021, 10:47:37 AM EDT Expand All History
Post #439,562 by drook 8/2/21 11:17:55 AM 8/2/21 11:17:55 AM Reply	I'm allowed to be lazy In my current world my team evaluates cloud-based security products. We're mostly AWS first, Azure second. The only Windows to be seen is VMs, which are mostly hosted on Linux servers. Desktops are default Windows, but developers can request Mac (and most do). I know that my knowledge about MS' offerings is about a decade out of date, so if we evaluate something on the desktop I'll have to get current. Until that, I'm happy to leave my opinions unexamined. -- Drew
Post #439,564 by static 8/4/21 5:34:10 AM 8/4/21 5:34:10 AM Reply	Because there are people who hate Windows 8. I'm just not sure how many are in here. :-) I know a few on Twitter. As Peter pointed out, Windows 8 was wonderfully bold and had a lot of potential, if they'd only had the balls to persist for another major version. They could've done a half-fork: done the Windows 10 thing for people who wanted more 7, but also supported an 8 mode for people (like me!) who preferred that. Wade.
Post #439,565 by Another Scott 8/4/21 2:02:52 PM 8/4/21 2:02:52 PM Reply	Relatedly - Android Police - M1 iMac Review. https://www.androidpolice.com/2021/08/04/apple-imac-m1-review/ Seems fair. Cheers, Scott.

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