Addicted to IPads

[rayinpenn]

I am not a gadget person at all; Though I do admit to a passion for tools. I bought my first generation iPad when they just came out. At first it was simply a pricey reading and email machine I would buy books and read them (too expensive) then I discovered the Philadelphia library electronic book lending (Free the best price of all). Sure I occasionally have to wait for books but I am patient. Then when we were visiting the college my daughter ultimately attended the IPad slipped out of my hand and hit the curb just the wrong way. The case It was in didn't help.

Yesterday I just bought the big IPad professional to replace the second generation machine that I bought about 3 plus years ago to replace the first generation machine. Yes it was expensive but I figure I'll be 62 in July how many more toys will there be? And I use it all the time.. At work it is open on my desk usually playing pandora -yesterday it was 50s Rock and roll, Sinatra often and occasionally Gershwin.. it makes my cube a friendly place.

I can get my personal email which is blocked in the office. Research the Internet for code. (I am a developer) it too is oddly occasionally gets blocked in the office.. I watch the news, TV shows YouTube and Netflix movies on it as well (No not in the office).. It really is one stop shopping.. The Mrs loves her Samsung tablet- she too is addicted.

Laptop I've got one of those too but I never use it...why would I?

 

[ChiliPepr]

Research the Internet for code. (I am a developer) it too is oddly occasionally gets blocked in the office..

ditto on the blocking... We block all word press sites and they usually have "exactly" what I am looking for... good thing they do not block when going thru the wifi

 

[mpeirce]

DW has an iPad Pro and love's it.

She especially loves the pencil - it's the main reason she got it. She's been doing lots of sketching with it. She's had various styluses over the years and she says the Apple Pencil is in a class all by itself.

 

[Richard4444]

I have an iPad 3rd generation, 16 GB. I had only about 500 MB left, so when the new iPad Pro came out recently, I bought the previous iPad Air 2 64 GB for $100 less than it was priced the previous week. More space and lighter than the iPad 3rd gen. Now I have two. Hopefully my DGF will get an iPhone one day so at least I can text her and then I'll give her the 3rd gen iPad to sync with. Hopefully.

Rich

 

[Ronstar]

I have an iPad 4th generation, 32GB. DW has one also. I gave my old iPad to MIL as a photo slideshow machine. I use mine more than my laptop or desktop. And my phone screen isn't big enough to see much. So I use it for surfing the web, email, texting, monitoring security cameras, reading books - everything I use the desktop and laptop for except photo editing. Gets most of its work while I'm multitasking with TV or when I'm away from home.

 

[W2R]

I have a wi-fi only "iPad Air 2" that I bought a few months ago. I gave away my old iPad 2.

I have used an iPad every day for several years, but honestly I do not use it as any kind of workhorse computer at all. I prefer to use my high end laptop for that sort of thing.

Instead, I use my iPad Air 2 for playing extremely simple, uncomplicated games with pretty graphics at bedtime or when waiting for F to pick me up when we are headed out. Sudoku, Fishdom, hidden objects games, and jigsaw puzzles come to mind. I might surf the net a little on it, and I check my e-mail on it. I check local real estate to confirm that my Dream House (that I bought and moved into last summer) really IS the most suitable house for me in my neighborhood and that other houses are getting more expensive lately. That's about it, and then I go to bed.

To me it's just a toy; a toy that I like, don't get me wrong - - I love my iPad, but for me it is no more than a really, really nifty toy. Some of us retirees really love playing with our super-nifty toys, though! I know I do.

 

[Richard4444]

To me it's just a toy; a toy that I like, don't get me wrong - - I love my iPad, but for me it is no more than a really, really nifty toy. Some of us retirees really love playing with our super-nifty toys, though! I know I do.

+1

Rich

 

[Chuckanut]

FWIW, my five year old iPad 2 barely works anymore. More than 1/2 the time I use it the app or site fails, or just goes back to the main screen. Sometimes it just locks up. Other times it is very, very, very slow. Doing anything meaning full on it is painful.

OTOH, My eight (8) year old Macbook is going strong. It runs just about everything I throw at it, though slower than a modern machine. But, it is still far faster than my iPad.

It's not even a contest, the Mac has shown that at 8 years it is a far better machine than the iPad at 5 years.

 

[audreyh1]

I use my iPad mini all the time. I don't read paper anymore - all on the iPad. And I do most of my web browsing there.

I only go to the laptop to run Quicken or update a few spreadsheets, or maybe when I'm writing up a long series of notes or a document.

Photoediting - but that's on the big screen iMac.

So my iPad has become pretty essential - more than a toy.

 

[ziggy29]

I have a wi-fi only "iPad Air 2" that I bought a few months ago. I gave away my old iPad 2.

My wife bought a new iPad Air 2 a few months ago. Her old iPad 2 was a hand-me-down that I use once in a while now.

 

[Nunthewiser]

Being a cheap ba$tard, and somewhat Android phone proficient I chose a different path and got about the same result. I found out that the old Barnes and Noble Nook HD could be bought for a song, rooted easily, and made to run Lollipop or Marshmallow. They have some of the best screen resolution ever made. I am also playing around with cast off Amazon Fire HDs, which are almost as good,but more difficult to root.

I have about 6 of them charged and ready to use. I almost never use a pc.

 

[mpeirce]

Just for the record, I was just watching the SpaceX booster landing on the barge in the Atlantic ocean on my iPad Air 2 while sitting in my comfy chair in my den.

 

[harley]

Laptop I've got one of those too but I never use it...why would I?

Because sometimes you (may) have to type. If you work with spreadsheets or do any significant keyboarding, the iPad quickly becomes a PITA. I like ours, but I still do 90% of my real computing on my laptop. Bigger screen, real keyboard, onboard storage. These are things I like and need. I'm not a cloud person, too much security background for that. I like a hard drive, and removable storage. And I am not particularly fond of the little iPad keyboards. They're OK, much better than the onscreen keyboard, but a little too small for quick and easy typing IME. I just ordered a couple of the 12.9" Pros for a customer, and it looks like the keyboard for that is almost usable. But I'm not particularly fond of typing on the keyboard, then having to use my fingers on the screen to highlight for cutting and pasting.

The iPad is tres cool, and a wonderful device for browsing, streaming, Face Timing, and reading. But very limited as an actual computer.

 

[aja8888]

Just for the record, I was just watching the SpaceX booster landing on the barge in the Atlantic ocean on my iPad Air 2 while sitting in my comfy chair in my den.

I was watching the same thing except using my Toshiba intel powered Chromebook!

 

[Lakedog]

The iPad is tres cool, and a wonderful device for browsing, streaming, Face Timing, and reading. But very limited as an actual computer.

+1

I much prefer my MacBook Air to the iPad (or any tablet) and use it about 90% of the time.

 

[tmm99]

I am on my 3rd iPad myself. The first one (the original) was a gift from the company I w*rked for, and the 2nd one I won at a sales/seminar (w*rk related). I broke the 2nd one (I dropped it face down on a metal framed side table, and the monitor shattered) and within one week, I spent my own money to purchase my 3rd one (Ipad mini 2) - I bought an Otter Defender case this time so even if I drop it, hopefully, it won't break. iPad has been my couch browser (plus I read emails, watch TV shows, check out this forum, read e-books including library e-books, etc, etc) for the last several years. I wouldn't want to live without it.

 

[folivier]

Gave my iPad to my granddaughter. Use a Fire for reading only. Use my laptop for 99% of everything other than reading ebooks. Why would I want to look at a screen that has great resolution and finger smudges? I hate smudges. MOO.

 

[mpeirce]

I hate smudges.

I used to clean it all the time!

Now, not so much. Embrace the smudges!

 

[ProspectiveBum]

I have a first-gen iPad that is used almost exclusively for watching Netflix in bed. It works well for that, but is basically useless for anything else.

I'll probably upgrade our 2010 MacBook Pro to a MacBook Air before getting another iPad.

 

[tmm99]

I have a first-gen iPad that is used almost exclusively for watching Netflix in bed. It works well for that, but is basically useless for anything else.

My original iPad still has a place like yours too - it stays in my bedroom for Kindle reading. iOS upgrade stopped and tons of apps couldn't be upgraded and the browser started crashing randomly after a while, but it still works good for Kindle reading.

 

[Ronnieboy]

When the ipad and similar came out, I wasn't too interested. It seemed ok but not worth the price in my mind. Then about 3 years ago on Fathers day, DS gave me one (ipad mini 1st gen) as a gift (he loves apple products) cuz he thought I was missing out? I found out that it was a pretty neat gadget, surf the web, netflix, use wi fi at w*rk, etc. etc.

Over time I noticed that apps would run slow, web pages painfully slow some would just reload a minute or two after being on the page with an error that 'something went wrong with the web page and it has to reload'. It was getting to the point that if I didn't have an app for the website I wanted to use, I wouldn't go to it.

I guess the paranoid belief is that each iOS upgrade purposely slows down your device, uses more memory, etc., so that you get frustrated and voluntarily purchase the newest hardware Maybe its true?!?

Anyhow not to hijack the thread, but just two days ago, my ipad went completely blank, like the power was off. No hard reset, charging for multiple hours, nothing, would get it to work. I ended up taking it to a apple (not official) repair place and they tried some kind of hard diagnostic reset on it and no go, it is now a paper weight. Has that happened to anyone else? Is 3 years an average amount of life for an ipad?

So, now not having one I am jonesing for one. I saw at Costco they have the mini 4 with 64G for $429. A drop in price (I was told) due to the newest pro coming out and $70 less than apple direct. I'm going to get it tonight or tomorrow.

 

[harley]

I guess the paranoid belief is that each iOS upgrade purposely slows down your device, uses more memory, etc., so that you get frustrated and voluntarily purchase the newest hardware Maybe its true?!?

No, they wouldn't do that. Anymore than MS would do it with each new release of Windows. Don't be a conspiracy theorist.

 

[tmm99]

Over time I noticed that apps would run slow, web pages painfully slow some would just reload a minute or two after being on the page with an error that 'something went wrong with the web page and it has to reload'. It was getting to the point that if I didn't have an app for the website I wanted to use, I wouldn't go to it.

I guess the paranoid belief is that each iOS upgrade purposely slows down your device, uses more memory, etc., so that you get frustrated and voluntarily purchase the newest hardware Maybe its true?!?

I kind of noticed the same thing with my iPad 2. After one upgrade, my iPad slowed down so much that I hesitated to use it. I found some tricks off of the internet (Evidently, a lot of people had the same performance issue and posted work-around's) and turned off a bunch of features and the speed improved, but not to the original state. I now have an iPad mini 2 and iPhone 5 and I am not upgrading either of them until I research the internet to make sure the new release doesn't slow down the models I have. Maybe Apple doesn't mean to do it on purpose, but they don't care about older models much, and probably do more stringent QA testing against newer models, is my opinion.

 

[target2019]

Nexus 10 tablet has been da bomb for me. Spouse is beginning to understand why Netflix through the tablet can be superior to watching on a big screen. Love falling asleep bingeing on The Office episodes.

After 3 years it is still reliable. I see it is downgraded in name now - to Nexus 9.

 

[Ronnieboy]

No, they wouldn't do that. Anymore than MS would do it with each new release of Windows. Don't be a conspiracy theorist.

I wasn't throwing that out as my belief, just that I had heard of the theory.