Does the iPad make sense as a computer now?
(Dieter exhales loudly) (mid-tempo hip-hop music)- This week was WWDC and we saw a ton, andI mean a ton, of stuff: that new Mac Pro, dark mode on the iPhone, iPad apps on the Mac, a watchOS App Store, and new features for the iPad. And today, I want to talk about the iPad because I have feelings, also questions, maybe answers, but definitely questions,and here are two. Is it ready to be your primary computer, and then, is this newgesture system intuitive? (quirky music)So with the first question, we've got iPadOS, which is iOS 13 but renamed for the iPad, I guess. Can it do all the computer things? I mean, if you look at all of the features that Apple announced in its keynote, it's like they were personallyresponding to our gripes from our iPad Pro review. - You can plug as many flash drives or hard drives as youwant into this USB-C port, and nothing will happen. (audience applauds)- You can now plug in a thumb drive! - You can't even import photos directly into an app like Lightroom CC. - Sometimes when you'reworking with a camera, you'd like to import directlyinto an app like Lightroom, and now you can. - The mobile version of Safari just isn't a desktop-class browser. - Well, no more, because we're bringingdesktop-class browsing. (audience applauds) (quirky electronic music)- Now, with all of that stuff, I don't really know if it's all better because Apple changed theiPad at a fundamental level or if Apple's justfixing one-off annoyances we've been complaining aboutby just doing whack-a-mole. We're going to have towait for the full review to answer that question for real. I should note right now, though, that I only had a short timewith the new iPadOS directly. All the video footage thatyou're seeing here and elsewhere is Apple's own on-rails demo.
Anyway, I do think thenew windowing system alone should make this update worth it. You have a ton of newSlide Over app options, and you can fan them out or swipe through them just like an iPhone. You could have a singleapp with multiple windows and even get a view ofall those app windows just like you can on the Mac. iPadOS is built so thatanything you can drag, you can pretty much make a window out of, and although the firstversion of this developer beta is a little bit buggy, the window thing, it actuallyreally did kinda work. But we need to talk aboutthe new gestures now, and that means we get to talk about grammar. - [Off-camera] No. - This is the, look, look! I got an English degree(mid-tempo hip-hop music) and I'm going to use it, damnit, and I promise this is going to make sense, so just hang with me here. First thing, we need to talk about what all of the iPadOS gestures are because there are just a lot of them. One finger, tap. Also drag. Also tap and hold to do some stuff, but it changes depending on the context. It might be jiggly mode orit might be something else, but then, there's also new stuff. There's a new way to justdrag the cursor around, but if you do it just so, instead of moving the cursor, you can select text with it. Then, two fingers. This is new, but there's a waythat you can use two fingers to select multiple itemson a list by dragging it. I don't think we've seen all the ways that this can work just yet. Now, the other new thing is three fingers. First, there's cut and paste.
You use three fingers like you're picking something up to copy. You do it twice to cut, and then you do thislike three-finger plop to paste stuff. There's also undo and redo, which is a three-finger swipeto the left or to the right. Also, you can hold down three fingers to get a pop-up user interfacefor cut, copy, and paste. Lastly, four fingers. Just like before, a pinch will take you home. It's actually pretty easy to mix this up with the three-finger thing, but whatever. (Dieter exhales sharply) The thing is if we made thissame list for Mac or Windows and everything that youcan do with a keyboard and various mouse clicksand drags or whatever, it would be pretty long, too, which is what brings me to grammar. Okay, so how long do I have to get into the theory of language and maybe just a littlebit of bonus semiotics? - [Off-camera] I'll give you like a minute? - Okay so, yeah, no semiotics then. (books thud heavily) (Dieter groans) (percussive music)Think of language as being on a spectrum. On this end are really rigid languages like math and formallogic and computer code. If you use the wronggrammar in these languages, they totally break and theydon't communicate any meaning. They form an internallyconsistent framework that runs like a clock, and you pretty much have to take classes to learn how to use them. On the other end of thespectrum is natural language, the stuff that you and I speak every day, like English or Mandarin or whatever. These languages are really flexible. Their rules of grammar can bend without breaking their meaning. The grammar, though, it's super messy because we basically make it up as we go. However, we learn theselanguages naturally just by having people talk to us. In the middle, you canthink of a user interface as a kind of language. It's how you communicatewith the computer.
It has to be really rigidand consistent like code because that's how computers work, but it also needs to beflexible and learnable over time because that's how our stupidsquishy human brains work. So the iPad user interface has a grammar. It has rules, but where does it fall on this language spectrum? Did I do it?(percussive music) I didn't do it? Great. I was close! (electronic drum thumps) So let's answer that spectrum question. (mid-tempo hip-hop music)I do think the grammar on iPadOS is mostly internally consistent and fairly flexible. One finger, do stuff. Two fingers, select stuff. Three fingers, edit stuff. Four fingers, go home, I guess? I don't know. These different fingergestures do different things depending on the context, which is a little bit ofa problem for consistency, but hey, this isn't code, so I'm not mad. But I worry that the iPad's grammar is too hard to naturally learn. With the grammar of amouse and a keyboard, you build up more skillsnaturally over time as you use it. You right-click and see a menu and then you do it elsewhere. You find the keyboard shortcutslisted in the top menu. Now, part of this is that we've had the desktop around for 35 years, so it feels normal. But the truth is that thedesktop UI is super weird, and we all learned how to use it, but it has a smooth ramp-upfrom basic user to pro user. On the iPad, I just don'tknow how one of these gestures leads naturally to the more advanced one.
I think once you learn themall and get good at them, the iPad can be incrediblyflexible and powerful, but there's not a smooth ramp-up. You're going to have to, like,watch a lot of tutorials to figure all these gestures out. (mellow music)Look, I know this grammar stuff,it's not a perfect metaphor, but I do think it's areally helpful framework for answering the question I started with at the beginning of the video: is the iPad's user interface intuitive? Now, I think intuitive is a dumb word because most people use it wrong. They think it means something that everybody just knows inherently. What intuitive actually means is stuff that you learn without noticing that you're learning it. We all know that the iPad is intuitive because you can justhand it to any toddler and they'll figure out thebasics just by playing with it, but these new, more advanced gestures, I'm not sure they're there yet. I think we might be lookingat the same story as always with the iPad. It can be really powerful, but only if you take thetime to learn its quirks. Hey, thank you so much for watching. Let me know what you think of this weird argumentdown in the comments, and specifically, do you think that iPadOS makes this a primarycomputer for more people? Also, if you're more interested in an, like, actually powerful computer, we have a great video with the new Mac Pro and a ton of coverage forthat so check all that out.
Anyway, I do think thenew windowing system alone should make this update worth it. You have a ton of newSlide Over app options, and you can fan them out or swipe through them just like an iPhone. You could have a singleapp with multiple windows and even get a view ofall those app windows just like you can on the Mac. iPadOS is built so thatanything you can drag, you can pretty much make a window out of, and although the firstversion of this developer beta is a little bit buggy, the window thing, it actuallyreally did kinda work. But we need to talk aboutthe new gestures now, and that means we get to talk about grammar. - [Off-camera] No. - This is the, look, look! I got an English degree(mid-tempo hip-hop music) and I'm going to use it, damnit, and I promise this is going to make sense, so just hang with me here. First thing, we need to talk about what all of the iPadOS gestures are because there are just a lot of them. One finger, tap. Also drag. Also tap and hold to do some stuff, but it changes depending on the context. It might be jiggly mode orit might be something else, but then, there's also new stuff. There's a new way to justdrag the cursor around, but if you do it just so, instead of moving the cursor, you can select text with it. Then, two fingers. This is new, but there's a waythat you can use two fingers to select multiple itemson a list by dragging it. I don't think we've seen all the ways that this can work just yet. Now, the other new thing is three fingers. First, there's cut and paste.
You use three fingers like you're picking something up to copy. You do it twice to cut, and then you do thislike three-finger plop to paste stuff. There's also undo and redo, which is a three-finger swipeto the left or to the right. Also, you can hold down three fingers to get a pop-up user interfacefor cut, copy, and paste. Lastly, four fingers. Just like before, a pinch will take you home. It's actually pretty easy to mix this up with the three-finger thing, but whatever. (Dieter exhales sharply) The thing is if we made thissame list for Mac or Windows and everything that youcan do with a keyboard and various mouse clicksand drags or whatever, it would be pretty long, too, which is what brings me to grammar. Okay, so how long do I have to get into the theory of language and maybe just a littlebit of bonus semiotics? - [Off-camera] I'll give you like a minute? - Okay so, yeah, no semiotics then. (books thud heavily) (Dieter groans) (percussive music)Think of language as being on a spectrum. On this end are really rigid languages like math and formallogic and computer code. If you use the wronggrammar in these languages, they totally break and theydon't communicate any meaning. They form an internallyconsistent framework that runs like a clock, and you pretty much have to take classes to learn how to use them. On the other end of thespectrum is natural language, the stuff that you and I speak every day, like English or Mandarin or whatever. These languages are really flexible. Their rules of grammar can bend without breaking their meaning. The grammar, though, it's super messy because we basically make it up as we go. However, we learn theselanguages naturally just by having people talk to us. In the middle, you canthink of a user interface as a kind of language. It's how you communicatewith the computer.
It has to be really rigidand consistent like code because that's how computers work, but it also needs to beflexible and learnable over time because that's how our stupidsquishy human brains work. So the iPad user interface has a grammar. It has rules, but where does it fall on this language spectrum? Did I do it?(percussive music) I didn't do it? Great. I was close! (electronic drum thumps) So let's answer that spectrum question. (mid-tempo hip-hop music)I do think the grammar on iPadOS is mostly internally consistent and fairly flexible. One finger, do stuff. Two fingers, select stuff. Three fingers, edit stuff. Four fingers, go home, I guess? I don't know. These different fingergestures do different things depending on the context, which is a little bit ofa problem for consistency, but hey, this isn't code, so I'm not mad. But I worry that the iPad's grammar is too hard to naturally learn. With the grammar of amouse and a keyboard, you build up more skillsnaturally over time as you use it. You right-click and see a menu and then you do it elsewhere. You find the keyboard shortcutslisted in the top menu. Now, part of this is that we've had the desktop around for 35 years, so it feels normal. But the truth is that thedesktop UI is super weird, and we all learned how to use it, but it has a smooth ramp-upfrom basic user to pro user. On the iPad, I just don'tknow how one of these gestures leads naturally to the more advanced one.
I think once you learn themall and get good at them, the iPad can be incrediblyflexible and powerful, but there's not a smooth ramp-up. You're going to have to, like,watch a lot of tutorials to figure all these gestures out. (mellow music)Look, I know this grammar stuff,it's not a perfect metaphor, but I do think it's areally helpful framework for answering the question I started with at the beginning of the video: is the iPad's user interface intuitive? Now, I think intuitive is a dumb word because most people use it wrong. They think it means something that everybody just knows inherently. What intuitive actually means is stuff that you learn without noticing that you're learning it. We all know that the iPad is intuitive because you can justhand it to any toddler and they'll figure out thebasics just by playing with it, but these new, more advanced gestures, I'm not sure they're there yet. I think we might be lookingat the same story as always with the iPad. It can be really powerful, but only if you take thetime to learn its quirks. Hey, thank you so much for watching. Let me know what you think of this weird argumentdown in the comments, and specifically, do you think that iPadOS makes this a primarycomputer for more people? Also, if you're more interested in an, like, actually powerful computer, we have a great video with the new Mac Pro and a ton of coverage forthat so check all that out.
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