• 2 months ago
Transcript
00:00All right, so let's talk about iPads in 2020 every video
00:03I've ever done about an iPad on this channel has always had a similar kind of vibe
00:07It's like the hardware is awesome. Very powerful. The build quality is great
00:11The software improves year on year
00:13But it never felt like it was a device that I could openly recommend to people as being like hey
00:18This is a device that can be a laptop replacement for most people
00:22Something always felt like it was missing but this year Apple brought something to the iPad OS that changes things
00:28They finally brought proper mouse and trackpad support for iPad OS now
00:32They've always had some kind of half-baked
00:35Assistive mouse support for iPad OS ever since it launched with iOS 13, but it now feels fully baked
00:42It now feels like something that is an integral part of the operating system
00:45So I'm going to talk about what it is
00:47Just so you have some context of what this mouse support is
00:49But I also want to talk about the bigger picture of what this means for the ecosystem
00:53Going forward for developers and just apps and stuff
00:56So right off the rip Apple didn't just half-ass this thing
01:00They didn't just you know, throw in a cursor and call it a day
01:02They spent the time to build a proper mouse UI that works well with the existing touch based interface
01:09and that's the thing that makes this difficult right when you have a
01:12Product that has been touch based or primarily touch based ever since its inception like 10 years ago
01:18It's difficult to throw in a mouse cursor and have it work properly
01:22That's one of the reasons why they took so long to do this, I think but it's quite good now
01:26So the cursor transforms based on the context
01:29It's limited right now because it's new but basically if you're floating around doing nothing, it's just a circle
01:35You can click on apps and you can click on websites, but if you're over UI icons, it'll react differently
01:41So if you're over pull down menus, it'll react a certain way if you're over text
01:45It'll turn into that like vertical text editing cursor
01:48So it's easier to select text and it does take time to get used to right? It's an unconventional cursor
01:53It changes shape and translucency as you move it around. It's not something that our eyes are used to so tracking
01:59It takes a little bit of time to just kind of adapt to it
02:01but once you get it and like once you understand what Apple's going for it makes sense and it's just like it's just a
02:07Different way of using a cursor on a screen. I will say for some people that look at this. They're like
02:13They'll be like this is wrong. This is not how cursors should be
02:17This is not how mice and trackpad should be with computers. You got to try it
02:20It's hard to convey in a video. Like I think if you spend 15-20 minutes using this, it'll make sense
02:25And the reason why it works is because this like I said before was primarily a touch based device
02:32So you can't just throw in our traditional mouse cursor on there and expect it to feel like a proper UI
02:37Okay, so the things that do work very well
02:40I mean
02:40it's a mouse it clicks and does things like you would expect right clicks work and
02:45Hovering over content will give you context menus if it supports it
02:49Multitasking is way faster. You can move your menus around very efficiently
02:52There's a lot of supported gestures and stuff just works quite well
02:55You can use either Bluetooth mice or Bluetooth trackpads or even USB connected mice
03:00but basically any kind of workflow where your hands are on a keyboard or just not on the screen and you want to interact with
03:05Your workspace without lifting up and touching it
03:07It's just way better to have a trackpad or a mouse than to rely on a touch screen
03:13Now there are certain things that don't work perfectly yet
03:17For example, there are apps where the cursor should be pixel precise like say in Photoshop or procreate
03:23But right now those apps don't have a brush or a tool for the cursor
03:28It's still just the default circle, but I'm sure the developers will update those apps soon in Excel
03:33You can't shift click like if you want to drag multiple cells
03:37You have to click that dot in the corner to be able to select multiple cells and it's something I'm sure again
03:43The app developers will fix over time
03:45But I did notice something that may be a bit of a problem like a lot of these apps were developed with touch
03:51Inputs in mind so say something like Excel you can't press the different cells super quickly
03:55Like you have to wait in between a little bit
03:57there's a kind of a refractory period before you can click the different cells and
04:01It's great when you have touch inputs because then you can't miss click or double click by accident
04:05But when you're using a mouse, let's say you're very proficient with Excel and you can click quickly
04:10There's still that wait time in between each click
04:12So I think that some apps are gonna have to be updated to have to take advantage of the faster interaction that mouse users have
04:18With their apps. The other thing I noticed that even like this is a kind of like a first-generation
04:24magic trackpad from Apple the scrolling doesn't work like the
04:29Tracking works perfectly fine, but the vertical scrolling doesn't work
04:33And I don't know if this is something that software can fix but only certain trackpads can do vertical scrolling right now on the iPad
04:39But the overall experience when you have either a Bluetooth mouse or a trackpad connected to the iPad
04:45It's like it's an experience that rivals the traditional laptop right now. It's different, but it's comparable now
04:52the real interest to me is not just the the connectivity that we're talking about right now, it's
04:59app development like if you think about
05:02Developers when they looked at the iPad of like hmm. Should we make an app for the iPad?
05:07Should we spend the resources and the effort and the time to make an app for the iPad and for some developers?
05:13that's a really tough decision because the primary method of interaction with this machine is
05:18Your finger or the Apple pencil like neither of those are ideal when it comes to certain applications
05:24But now because they have proper support for this stuff for mice and trackpads now, there's incentive
05:30So let's say you're a developer where your primary app is like on a desktop and you have a huge user base
05:36That is used to mice and trackpads as the way of interacting with your app or using your app
05:43Now there's a real incentive to put that app on this thing
05:46You see what I'm saying?
05:47Like now your user base can just put it on this iPad and and they can use it right away
05:53Like there are apps out there like LumaFusion a video editing app for the iPad and you know
05:58My friend John from TLD he uses that thing and he can make full-blown
06:01Fully edited videos off of an iPad and it works incredibly well for him
06:05But it's a huge ask for the average user to use that thing with an Apple pencil like, you know
06:12It can be done
06:12but most video editors would prefer this stuff instead of fingers and pencils to chop videos and this is the magic of
06:21support when Apple supports
06:24Hardware like this it just makes developers so much more motivated to put proper apps professional apps on the iPad
06:31And because the hardware is so powerful
06:33I'm curious to see what developers do like there's just so much more potential now that the iPad has proper support for
06:39mice and trackpads now if you're someone that
06:42Wanted the iPad to turn into a Mac like you just want this thing to run Mac OS with like full-blown
06:48Keyboard and trackpad Mac OS that's not what this is for right? The iPad will always be an iPad
06:52It's just this breathes new life into all of the iPads. It gets softer, right?
06:58This now has so much more usability
07:01productivity enjoyability
07:03Usability all of the itties the iPad. Okay. Hope you guys enjoyed this video thumbs
07:08We liked it subs if you loved it. See you guys next time