Beep boop - this is a robot. A new show has been posted to TWiT…
What are your thoughts about today’s show? We’d love to hear from you!
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About an hour into listening to the episode:
Regarding the iPad and the value proposition: Leo is absolutely correct on the price issue for many typical people. When you factor in the cost for a good laptop, phone, and tablet device - you are seriously closing in at $3000 or more. Multiple that by a family of 4 and that’s a tolerable good used car or a tuition payment.
Wesley’s (or Brian’s - not entirely sure which one’s) anecdotal comment about Sidecar being a good reason to own an iPad is only relevant if you also own a Mac device, as Sidecar only works with Apple (AFAIK). And given the price point of either device - using an iPad as basically a 2nd monitor-with-benefits seems a bit excessive unless you have the financial wherewithal to indulge in such a choice - which in turn brings back the cost factors.
Mind you - I’m not denying the benefits of Apple and their tightly-integrated ecosystem, but spending $2500+ ($1400+ for an entry-level MBP and $1100 for an entry-level iPadPro, and this doesn’t even consider iPhone costs) is not a scenario I can justify from a value basis. If I really have that kind of need for a 2nd monitor - I’ll spend $300+ to get a real monitor.
Regarding Devindra’s interest in different form-factor devices (specifically the Surface Neo and Surface Duo) - the challenge I see is getting developers to seriously consider Microsoft as a platform again. I think the company suffers from the misguided perception that it’s time is in the past. I still see people bringing up the antitrust trial from 1998, or Vista, or Ballmer’s reaction to iPhone as reasons why they don’t like Microsoft. it would be very nice if we could stop referencing behavior from the previous century (or even 15 years ago) as still relevant today.
I have my own rule regarding stuff like that - I call it Vincent’s Law of Behavioral Relevancy. If you can’t find examples of behavior that are more recent than 10 years prior to today to support your argument , then your argument is moot. It applies to discussions of tech companies and the people that lead them, but could be used more broadly.
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I’m not sure why the measuring stick for iPad is for it to do everything either. My iPad goes everywhere with me - I read on it, answer e-mails, take notes in meetings, and even watch TV on it but I still need a PC for alot of things. We all have a toolbox at home and it doesn’t have one tool in it - hammer, screwdrivers, pliers, etc. We need different tools for different things. I think the innovation on the iPad has definitely slowed down but it keeps getting incremental improvements. I don’t think it has to be a swiss army knife for it to have a good value proposition.
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In regards to the iPad discussion I was disappointed that @Leo mentioned the Stratechery article by Ben Thompson (linked below) but failed to communicate what I think was the central thesis: what makes the iPad a disappointment is that the app ecosystem never fully developed around it to make it a more central computing device for more people.
Steve Jobs talked about the iPad needing to do some things better than a phone or a computer in order to earn its place. It arguably does many consumption tasks at a high level, but creation tasks are more limited. There are still many tasks that are far easier to accomplish on a computer than on an iPad, and much of that comes down an insufficient number of apps being re-imagined for the iPad.
Ben points first to the App Store model, which doesn’t lend itself to developers making a strong ROI for building the kinds of complex apps the iPad is technologically capable of handling. He cites GarageBand as the start of this. Here’s this amazing app that revolutionizes music creation by re-imagining it for a touch device; and Apple announces it will be $4.99, setting a ridiculously low price expectation that no other developer could meet. Beyond the “race to the bottom” pricing, there are also issues such as a lack of free trials, and an inability to connect directly with customers. Apple and the App Store have essentially kneecapped the 3rd party developers who could have otherwise been building out this new vision of touch-based productivity.
He does touch on the mutli-tasking complexities, but again ties it back to the idea that all of the problems with multi-tasking are not just a challenge for users but also a pain point for developers. If multi-tasking were more intuitive, more obvious and more widely adoptable then developers would be better able and more inclined to build complex apps that support it.
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the challenge I see is getting developers to seriously consider Microsoft as a platform again.
The good news, at least with Duo, is that developers don’t need to do anything for their apps to just run and work as normal. By default an app will launch on a single screen and work just as it does on any other 5"-6" screen device. People can enjoy the benefit of say their Twitter feed on one screen and a browser tab or some other app on the other screen. But yeah, it remains to be seen how many developers will go through the trouble of creating new multi-screen views or workflows for their apps. With Android getting support for folding screens though, perhaps this idea of windowing or multi-screen capability will become more popular.
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There are non-smart TV’s… that is exactly what a PC monitor is. Just plug the output from your AV reciever into it. I mean, sure, the majority of them do not go past 30 inches but they do exist.
My thoughts on StarLink are that, cool as it may be to have good internet everywhere, what is the environmental cost of doing that? If we can’t see the sun,or the sun can’t get through, wouldn;t that stop plants from being able to photosynethesize, and the efficency of your solar panels would drop surely?
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I gave up watching after an hour. A whole hour about ipad. I don’t have one, so started skipping forward and gave up.
Not a single mention of Chromebooks which seem to be doing well in the same market as the ipad, of if there was it was too late as I lost interest in this weeks extended ipad break weekly.
For “trendy” apps, I agree. For productivity software, there is still no serious alternative.
We are currently upgrading our ERP system and most users are getting a second screen. A few warehouse users are getting rugged Windows tablets for attaching to the industrial scales (the developer only does Windows). Likewise, our telephone system has a client for Windows and that’s it.
For heavy duty productivity applications, in business, Windows, with a possibility of macOS or Linux is still where most of the software is. Android and iOS are used for the odd vertical task, or checking email on the move.
My company smartphone spends about 50 weeks a year in my backpack and is removed once a week for recharging (when it drops below 40%).
On the other hand, my wife uses mainly her smartphone and tablet for reading the newspaper and communicating with our children and her friends. I fill out her timesheet for her, at the end of the month, because she never really learnt to use a PC.
I do agree with your main hypothesis, however on the other hand, I don’t have multiple 1000€+ tools in my toolbox. I don’t use them often enough. 
This. I worked for a software company that wrote bespoke applications for their customers. That was mainly SMBs who needed 2 - 3 copies or maybe a dozen at most. In the early days, it was a real pain. I think we ended up putting one app in the store, but as they are for internal use only and not for the wider public, that isn’t really an option. Most of the stuff was rolled out as “test” software to a limited number of test iPads that could be attched to the developer account.
Over time this eased a bit and there were a few more options. But it still isn’t simple to write one-off software for a customer that has 2 - 3 devices at most. They don’t want to go through the hassle of setting up a “corporate app store” just for 1 app on 2 devices.
Android offers sideloading, which is a bit better. But a lot of customer went over to Linux or Windows rugged tablets, because it was simple to write for and install the application on.
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WHAT!!! How distracting. That will make people less productive ya know.