Currently I have 3 Macs in active duty as well as an old 9th generation iPad that I gave away to my mother back when she was alive and inherited back with her passing last year, and to me they can't even be compared. As a blind user, there's also very little the iPad can do that the iPhone can't, and actually tend to get lost a lot more on that huge screen than on the iPhone, so the only reason why I might buy another iPad again in the future is the UVC USB camera support, long battery life, and possibility to use as a cellular router without wasting my iPhone's battery, and even then it will be an iPad Mini. I also have some plans to develop some accessibility products for it, as well as other stuff to commercialize at a later point, so as a developer it also interests me, but otherwise I find it to be mostly useless.
think I agree with this. The iPad without a keyboard is not much better than an iPhone. Add in the magic keyboard and you're approaching the cost of a MacBook air on which you can do a lot more.
The iPad is arguably much better for media but, again, I think you can get all that with an iPhone.
I'd say, buy a mac, even an M1 air, and a good bluetooth speaker to pair with iPhone for media consumption and have the best of both worlds.
this is, of course, assuming one does have an iPhone.
If, and that's a big "if", Apple ever gets VoiceOver for macOS working properly, like it did once upon a time, I will consider purchasing another MacBook Pro. When I first got my original Intel MBP, over a decade ago, I was in love with the thing. Of course, VoiceOver ran super smooth back then, and there was no such thing as, SNR, either. I realize people are not having quite as much of an issue with SNR these days, as we did back when Intel Mac was the only Mac, but still, it exists. So long as it exists, and VoiceOver has it's, quirks, I will avoid macOS like the plague.
To be clear, I believe macOS is a fantastic OS. On its own, that is.
VoiceOver for Mac, on the other hand, is absolute garbage. Hands down.
Regarding iPad, I believe iPad has a solid place in education. I used one back in my college days, it had Kurzweil loaded up on it, and disability services at my university would load up all of my textbooks onto it, so I had all my textbooks in one place, making the iPad a wonderful e-book reader. Obviously, the iPad is meant for much more than this, but in my use case it was perfect.
So, to summarize, I would absolutely buy a Mac again, provided Apple actually does major work on VoiceOver. The iPad on the other hand, I would only purchase again if I needed it for academia purposes.
The iPad is an excellent device for reading books and consuming media, and it performs these functions perfectly for my needs. However, if I had to choose between a Mac and an iPad, I would choose the Mac without hesitation. The Mac offers significantly better battery life and far superior multitasking capabilities. When it comes to text editing, the Mac provides a much smoother and more efficient experience. In contrast, even basic text navigation on the iPad can be frustrating. Additionally, working with tables and manipulating content on the iPad is particularly tedious—especially from an accessibility standpoint.
If I were to buy another device and had to choose between a Mac or an iPad, I’d probably go with the iPad. Honestly, I’m not a heavy computer user, and from what I understand, Macs aren’t quite as accessible as iPhones. I’m more about portability, so if it’s for school or work, a Mac probably wouldn’t be my first pick. I’d get an iPad mostly for the bigger speakers to play music or listen to books. It’s also handy to have a separate device when I don’t want to carry my phone around or if I do, but don’t want to be glued to it—which sounds a bit counterproductive, I know. I might also get a Bluetooth keyboard to go with it because typing on a bigger screen might be tricky otherwise, unless I go for a mini iPad. Plus, It’s nice to have a tablet, just because. I don't want to go through the hassle of learning a computer, and something about a tablet just screams, sophisticated professional, but not really, and I'm all about that logic.
First of all, my answer is Mac. Not that I've used an iPad much, but for things like using PyCharm or the terminal I don't think the iPad is an option. Is there any way to realistically use it for coding? I think there's Swift playgrounds or something but I'm guessing that's more a learning tool than a serious coding environment?
I would be curious to know - if someone has stuck a keyboard on an iPad and is just using it like they might use a Mac, how well does VoiceOver perform?
I suspect that a lot of the problems the Mac has is that it's user interface is so much more complicated, and that introducing a touch screen almost compels you to do something a bit simpler. The Mac's interaction model doesn't really work with big clumsy fingers.
But if you try editing text on an iPhone it's not exactly brilliant either and has many of the problems of the Mac. So I would think that the more complicated the task, the more similar the two experiences would be.
For entertainment things I just use my phone. It's more portable and is less painful to use than the Mac. I doubt an iPad would be any better - the extra screen size doesn't feel helpful to me. However, it's probably a better option than the Mac in this case.
The only time I've been tempted by an iPad was as a backup to my phone. The lack of multi-user support puts me off though as I could see it being a nice device to share with my wife.
Although I use windows, if I have the chance between a Mac and iPad, I would do the Mac. Like my iPad 9 but using a keyboard is easy. Have a wireless keyboard for it but is not the same.
Comments
Mac, hands down
Currently I have 3 Macs in active duty as well as an old 9th generation iPad that I gave away to my mother back when she was alive and inherited back with her passing last year, and to me they can't even be compared. As a blind user, there's also very little the iPad can do that the iPhone can't, and actually tend to get lost a lot more on that huge screen than on the iPhone, so the only reason why I might buy another iPad again in the future is the UVC USB camera support, long battery life, and possibility to use as a cellular router without wasting my iPhone's battery, and even then it will be an iPad Mini. I also have some plans to develop some accessibility products for it, as well as other stuff to commercialize at a later point, so as a developer it also interests me, but otherwise I find it to be mostly useless.
think I agree with this. The…
think I agree with this. The iPad without a keyboard is not much better than an iPhone. Add in the magic keyboard and you're approaching the cost of a MacBook air on which you can do a lot more.
The iPad is arguably much better for media but, again, I think you can get all that with an iPhone.
I'd say, buy a mac, even an M1 air, and a good bluetooth speaker to pair with iPhone for media consumption and have the best of both worlds.
this is, of course, assuming one does have an iPhone.
My thoughts on Mac and iPad
If, and that's a big "if", Apple ever gets VoiceOver for macOS working properly, like it did once upon a time, I will consider purchasing another MacBook Pro. When I first got my original Intel MBP, over a decade ago, I was in love with the thing. Of course, VoiceOver ran super smooth back then, and there was no such thing as, SNR, either. I realize people are not having quite as much of an issue with SNR these days, as we did back when Intel Mac was the only Mac, but still, it exists. So long as it exists, and VoiceOver has it's, quirks, I will avoid macOS like the plague.
To be clear, I believe macOS is a fantastic OS. On its own, that is.
VoiceOver for Mac, on the other hand, is absolute garbage. Hands down.
Regarding iPad, I believe iPad has a solid place in education. I used one back in my college days, it had Kurzweil loaded up on it, and disability services at my university would load up all of my textbooks onto it, so I had all my textbooks in one place, making the iPad a wonderful e-book reader. Obviously, the iPad is meant for much more than this, but in my use case it was perfect.
So, to summarize, I would absolutely buy a Mac again, provided Apple actually does major work on VoiceOver. The iPad on the other hand, I would only purchase again if I needed it for academia purposes.
Thanks for reading. 😇
Edit: fixed typos.
Macs Vs. iPads
The iPad is an excellent device for reading books and consuming media, and it performs these functions perfectly for my needs. However, if I had to choose between a Mac and an iPad, I would choose the Mac without hesitation. The Mac offers significantly better battery life and far superior multitasking capabilities. When it comes to text editing, the Mac provides a much smoother and more efficient experience. In contrast, even basic text navigation on the iPad can be frustrating. Additionally, working with tables and manipulating content on the iPad is particularly tedious—especially from an accessibility standpoint.
Mac or iPad? This is what I would choose, and why
If I were to buy another device and had to choose between a Mac or an iPad, I’d probably go with the iPad. Honestly, I’m not a heavy computer user, and from what I understand, Macs aren’t quite as accessible as iPhones. I’m more about portability, so if it’s for school or work, a Mac probably wouldn’t be my first pick. I’d get an iPad mostly for the bigger speakers to play music or listen to books. It’s also handy to have a separate device when I don’t want to carry my phone around or if I do, but don’t want to be glued to it—which sounds a bit counterproductive, I know. I might also get a Bluetooth keyboard to go with it because typing on a bigger screen might be tricky otherwise, unless I go for a mini iPad. Plus, It’s nice to have a tablet, just because. I don't want to go through the hassle of learning a computer, and something about a tablet just screams, sophisticated professional, but not really, and I'm all about that logic.
Why an iPad?
First of all, my answer is Mac. Not that I've used an iPad much, but for things like using PyCharm or the terminal I don't think the iPad is an option. Is there any way to realistically use it for coding? I think there's Swift playgrounds or something but I'm guessing that's more a learning tool than a serious coding environment?
I would be curious to know - if someone has stuck a keyboard on an iPad and is just using it like they might use a Mac, how well does VoiceOver perform?
I suspect that a lot of the problems the Mac has is that it's user interface is so much more complicated, and that introducing a touch screen almost compels you to do something a bit simpler. The Mac's interaction model doesn't really work with big clumsy fingers.
But if you try editing text on an iPhone it's not exactly brilliant either and has many of the problems of the Mac. So I would think that the more complicated the task, the more similar the two experiences would be.
For entertainment things I just use my phone. It's more portable and is less painful to use than the Mac. I doubt an iPad would be any better - the extra screen size doesn't feel helpful to me. However, it's probably a better option than the Mac in this case.
The only time I've been tempted by an iPad was as a backup to my phone. The lack of multi-user support puts me off though as I could see it being a nice device to share with my wife.
Mac
Although I use windows, if I have the chance between a Mac and iPad, I would do the Mac. Like my iPad 9 but using a keyboard is easy. Have a wireless keyboard for it but is not the same.