Stop letting the old party line harm users or, for that matter, shareholders. But maybe Apple could help make this up in iPad sales. Yes, I know: Apple marketers might worry about cannibalizing desktop sales. With mouse and 4K capabilities, the iPad would have more of a shot as a desktop replacement, not just a laptop one.
Making the lack of a mouse even more outrageous is the fact that the 20`8 iPad Pro can actually be wired in to a 4K monitor through the new USB port-what a waste to remain mouseless!
When the Apple iPad didn’t work with external monitors and keyboards, I could understand the lack of mouse capabilities. A mouse could rest on my desk, ready for action, at the same level on my keyboard. Similarly, with an external keyboard attached or not to the iPad, I don’t have to lift my hand up to the screen. I don’t want to look down at my iPad, to delete a paragraph or word or perform other tasks, if I’m using it with an external monitor on my desk. In my WordStar days, I myself was hostile to mice, but in this what-you-see-is-what-you-get world, rodents are essential for me, or close to it. I don’t give a squat what Apple’s marketing department or the ghost of Steve Jobs may think-real writers tend to like mice, at least when they’re using iPads with external monitors or accessory keyboards from Apple and elsewhere. Unless I jailbreak my iPad Pro and open myself up to security hazards and also lose my warranty, I cannot use a mouse-wireless or otherwise. We begin with a major negative of the hardware or at least the related firmware. Not optimal for writers, either, at least for meĪs a writer, also, not just as a reader, I’m somewhat disappointed. But having gained a reputation for accessibility for readers and others, Apple should be far ahead. While you can coax iOS devices to read books aloud to you, the task is more complicated than on, say, an Amazon Fire (at least after you’ve enabled text to speech). Yes-I agree: Amazon itself could still do better on the TTS front, especially in regard to decent implementation for nonblind users of E Ink devices.
You must use either an adapter or a Bluetooth headphone or speaker. If Apple wants to gain a leg up on Amazon, this would be one way to do it.įurthermore, the lack of an earphone jack in the 2018 iPad Pro models is a new hassle for iPadders listening to audiobooks. Also, shame on Apple for not aggressively promoting watermarking of ebooks-not just music-in place of DRM.
But I miss such Amazon touches as the Kindle X Ray feature and the ability to enjoy books in an Android app. Furthermore, Apple Books scores major points by being able to read ePub without conversion. So was I right, as a reader-writer, not to expect amazing benefits from the new iPad Pro, also sold as an 12.9-inch model starting at $999?Ībsolutely. With due apologies to Apple partisans, the Apple ebook application still doesn’t count much for me because of the higher prices of Apple-sold books and fewer reviews and book choices than from Amazon and its customers. Yes, I generally love iPad hardware and trappings-the feel, the screen, the Night Shift feature to filter out sleep-disrupting blue light, the general ergonomics.
As it happened, Apple did jack up the price of the basic iPad Pro by $150 to $799, maybe partly with Trump in mind. I worried that in the future, thanks to his trade jihad with China, iPad prices might spike up.
Except for the screen size, I anticipated only small improvements.įorget all the ballyhoo about the iPad finally being a replacement for laptops. Donald Trump instead was my main reason for keeping current. Never mind such shortcomings as the inability to use even Bluetooth mice with iPads-a huge dissing of writers.īut my expectations were low when I upgraded from a 10.5-inch 2017 iPad Pro to an 11-inch 2018 model with cellular and 512GB of storage.