A while back, I switched from a Galaxy Tab S 8.4″ to an iPad Mini, specifically to be able to use Daedalus and Ulysses again, which aren’t available on Android. Because I love those applications. I love them on iOS and I love them on the Mac. I thought it would help to boost my productivity to have access to them on both devices again.
I was wrong.
They haven’t boosted my productivity because I just plain hate the iPad Mini and iOS. This isn’t Apple hate. I was an early adopter of the original iPad, back when everyone else was making fun of it. And at the time, it was absolutely miraculous. An awesome device. And I use a Mac every single day for my work and at this point couldn’t (not just wouldn’t) switch without basically fucking up my entire life.
But the iOS thing? iOS is naff. And iOS on iPad Mini 2 is basically unusable. Let me count the ways:
- Zero personalization, diffused flow focus on default metaphor UI
- Dog slow (DOG SLOW) compared to my Android tablets over the last few years
- Terrible UI accountability (Did I tap it? No way to know, when there’s this much lag and no UI hovering/hilighting)
- Heavy
- Bulky and way too thick
- Touchscreen not as responsive
- Screen much worse quality (poor color gamut, worse viewing angles compared to AMOLED)
- Still no way to work with files
- Highly crashy if you do anything intensive due to paltry RAM size
In short, in comparison to recent versions of Android on recent Android hardware, feels like I’ve traveled years into the past, back to when the iPad was first released. It would have been as amazing as the original iPad if this was 2010. But it’s not. And for 2016, given the competition that’s on the market, the iPad Mini 2 is absolute shit. I have been trying to rationalize, but I can’t. I hate it. When I can budget in the funds, I’m switching back to Android.
And oh, the productivity thing…
Because I hate it, I avoid it like the plague. If I’d still had my Android tablet, I’d be writing this post on it. I’d be complaining about workflow (have to start a standalone editor, save it to a file, transfer it to the desktop, blah, blah) and probably dreaming of Daedalus and/or Ulysses again and all the time and distraction they’d save me. But I’d be typing on Android.
Where am I typing? At a quad-core i7 desktop with two monitors. That is not the right place for blogging. A tablet is the right place for blogging. But I cannot stand my current tablet. I hate using it now that I’ve used Android on recent hardware, even though I love Daedalus and Ulysses (still do, at least in concept). Because the endless lag (press the home button, wait 5-7 seconds for anything to happen; pinch-zoom and the zoom takes effect 3 seconds after you remove your hand from the screen) and the incredible bulk (it’s like the difference between wearing a wristwatch and wearing an alarm clock on your arm) and the washed-out, low-contrast display just make it an unpleasant experience, even with the best apps, once you’ve had something else.
I’m sad that I sold off my Galaxy Tab S 8.4″ for this crap. I thought it was the right move, but the gains haven’t materialized. Instead, I’m stuck in the past, sitting at a desk after work in the PM hours typing at a desktop like it’s 1999.
Sorry Apple, iPad is dead. You have become IBM, at least in this space—once great and innovative and miraculous, but now pushing the equivalent of huge, 40-pound beige-and-black steel boxes with PC-DOS and OS/2 while everyone else is selling contoured PCs that fit conveniently into small spaces and run that newfangled Windows thing.
iPad Mini 2 = epic fail. Crap tablet for 2016.