I fail to see why a normal person would want the extra things in an iPad Pro. Sure for some professionals it has some good features but a normal content consumer/light content creator (edit pictures, write some documents) it is just overkill with TrueTone display, etc.
Yes the CPU power is on the same level as an Atom/i3 from what I have read which is interesting but what does it really offer that the Air doesn't offer to an average user? I guess it is similar to how some of those average consumers also buy a MacBook Pro when they don't need any of the extra power over an Air (although lack of retina display on the Air is a valid reason thinking about it).
The biggest complaint I have with the iPad Pro is that it runs iOS. If it ran a touch-friendly ARM-version of OS X that would be awesome.
I got my father an iPad Pro over the holidays - he loves it.
He uses it for listening to music, writing emails, and surfing - the same things you'd do with any laptop, but he likes the iPad form factor quite a bit.
Most importantly, the iPad Pro (and I guess, now the smaller iPad Pro) is the only platform in the entire world that offers competent Chinese stylus input.
Typing Chinese is a pain in the ass - there are several ways to do it and all of them largely suck and require a steep learning curve (and even then, still a pain in the ass). There has been a lot of demand for writing-based input methods, but most of the solutions so far have sucked a lot. The hardware surrounding it has been bad, and so has the software, which often required you to enter a single character at a time tediously, with poor recognition rates to boot.
The iPad Pro is the first device that let him write entire sentences at a time, which made input much faster and more natural (you used to have to write a character, pause, select from a list of guesses, repeat). Not to mention the low lag between pen movement and on screen display makes the whole process way more pleasant. Being able to write entire sentences also improves the recognition accuracy of the software, which tilts it from being useful-but-crappy to godsend.
That use case is only for dictionaries/looking up words, where you never need to type anything of any length at a time, thus high speed typing is not needed, which is exactly what is being discussed.
Same here. But it seems I'm the weird one, or we. The Pro actually sold quite nicely, generating a billion in sales pretty quickly. Meanwhile the Surface line lags behind it in sales, despite the fact I think they're more capable devices and have superior value. I just don't get the appeal of the iPad Pro, and that's coming from an owner of a rMBP and iPad, both of which I use, not anti-apple or anti-iOS or even anti-iPad.
It feels like it gives me the hardware of an awesome machine, with the software of a phone, at a steep price. If you want to use it as a video screen or something, you don't need LTE, storage or a keyboard, but then you don't need a pro either. If you need a pro for on the road, you need LTE, keyboard and storage, and then the price approaches machines that have far nicer software for professional usecases, e.g. os x or windows.
Yet it's selling quite nicely, in a market that wasn't showing any signs of growth any more. Remarkable.
If you're an all-Mac home, what's the appeal of buying outside that ecosystem? I'd have to get used to Windows again. I would have a very non "native" experience to the content the rest of my devices share naturally.
The one plus is: I could run IntelliJ (I assume). But on a platform I don't normally use, having to jump through hoops (I assume) to get some of my toolchain (ffmpeg, exiftool, graphics-magic) working, with a different keyboard. And then hope it actually works on my main development and deployment environments.
I bought the Pro for games mostly. Love my Kindle Voyage for reading, so I didn't need that. The screen and speakers are awesome for games. I never touch my PS4 because I don't have 2 hours to "get a feel" or "settle into" a game. I've got 20 minutes maybe. So bite sized semi-casual gaming is really the only gaming that's convenient for me these days. I actively do not want a PC for gaming.
It can pull off the duties of all my non-work stuff easily. Photos, videos, web-surfing for a new cooktop. Budgeting and paying bills. Recipes hunting. Grocery app. Sitting on the counter while I'm cooking. It's actually better than a full laptop for most of those things.
I never update drivers. I don't have to configure anything. iOS could definitely do with some sort of multi-user sign-on experience, but it's not a hindrance for me personally.
For a home machine, if you don't want to play full PC games, it's about the best thing going (for a Mac user) IMO.
I picked the Pro (a few weeks ago), for three reasons:
1. Microcenter had it for $100 off MSRP.
2. For every great iPad keyboard, there's 3 or 4 mediocre ones. A first party keyboard is a big deal.
3. I like comics/graphic novels. Reading a full panel the way it was intended is really nice.
I would very much recommend this device to my older in-laws. It's everything they're used to, and more, and not missing anything they need. Price aside, there's really not much to complain about.
May I ask what games you play? There's a couple I really like, like XCOM, but... man, I've scoured the app store for hours every 5 months, pick 5 games, install m, and get frustrated with all the shit. Just inapp this and that left and right, no gameplay, lots of multiplayer games with 0 strategic component and they're either massive time sinks in grinding or pay to win...
Other than an occasional racing game, they's just nothing there I'd play. And even racing games get old fairly quickly, tilting a screen as a way of controlling a car isn't exactly the type of coordination challenge that keeps me enticed for long.
I totally hear you on little time to settle into a PS4 game, life with family, work etc... it's tricky to get a good session in like the old teenager days!
Anyway I get the appeal of a tablet to some extent for non-work stuff, for sure. I have a tablet. But the pro-element I don't get, especially when paring it with e.g. a keyboard etc, then I'd prefer a laptop. But I just can't imagine doing actual work on that thing, over e.g. a Macbook!
Anyway let me know if you have game recommendations on iOS!
* Riven
* Ocean horn (I have a Nimbus controllers for my AppleTV I figured I’d use for this one)
* DOOM
* SpaceMarshals: Turn based team shooter games can be fun
* Space Age: The graphics remind me of the original XCOM games
* Legend of Grimrock: Looks like old "Lands of Lore" games?
Occasionally I'll see something on the App Store that strikes my fancy. But usually I just check out TouchArcade every month or so and see what the top rated stuff is and go from there. I end up with a lot of older games that way, but it's all NewToMe™ So that works.
The one routinely annoying thing on the iPad Pro: When it wants to capitalize something, it's gonna do it, like it or not. Back-spacing, holding SHIFT and typing the letter again has no effect. See the "So" up there. The only way to get around it I've found is to type the letter twice, then cursor back and remove the capitalized one.
I'm not sure if it's an option in auto-correct settings I can disable but it's not enough of a nuisance to bother to check yet so there's that.
The pen is a big attraction to a lot of people. I've used one of those passive capacitive pens (the ones with foam on the end) with my Android tablet and my old iPad before that. It it was OK enough to whet my appetite for taking hand-written notes and stuff on a tablet, but the input lag really torpedoes the experience. If the active Apple pen is as nice as I've heard then that's a pretty attractive feature for me.
Not enough to justify the iPad Pro markup alone IMO, but it's definitely something major that makes me want one.
I've had most versions of previous iPads, and I've spent hundreds and hundreds on keyboards that are generally: Too Heavy, MicroUSB, non-Mac layout or otherwise flawed.
The down-stroke on the 12.9" iPad Pro Apple Keyboard takes a little getting used to, but it's otherwise very similar to my MacBook keyboard. Which puts it way ahead of any Logitech, Belkin, etc keyboard I've ever used on my old iPads.
It's great to just go to a trusted source, buy the thing, and it does what you expect.
So that's a major upgrade for the 9.7" version (IMO). There's nothing I can't do on my iPad Pro that I do on my Macbook aside from running IntelliJ and writing web apps. (There's "solutions" for that I guess, but not ones that I want to actually use yet.)
Also because of the screen size I guess, responsive websites think it's a desktop. Which is great. Because responsive usually just means "let me remove a lot of core features entirely and not actually make it any more usable" for 9 out of 10 sites IME.
I know a couple of people who have worked for Adobe. I can't offer anything super insightful but they both liked it there. It isn't "glamorous" like Facebook, Google, etc. It sounded just like most other big IT companies. They were both working on the transition from a boxed product to their cloud platform so not the core products (Photoshop, etc.) but more the back-end platforms.
I guess the article does say it was attributed to her, but whenever I read an executive-focused press article, I just think of the team that worked hard for months to get to this point, and suddenly the newly-hired senior executive marches in, attends a few meetings and reviews, makes a few phone calls, and then winds up getting all the credit. Seen it so many times at big companies.
Especially irksome is whenever a product launches or a deal is signed, the exec replies-all to the mass internal celebration email with a "So proud of this team!" message. Ok, thanks for smiling upon us peons with your lordly approval, after the 4 hours total you personally put into the effort.
Consider the possibility the team doesn't mind the executive getting the credit, or perhaps does enjoys doing great work regardless. I also used to view myself as a lowly peon, but that overshadowed the satisfaction of a job well done.
Also, consider Greene's (no relation) Law #1: Never outshine the master.
Nah not Snowden, it was just a joke because in TV shows whenever there is some kind of computer crime the technical specialists in the show (black hats turned white, etc.) talk about how the criminal is untraceable because they were hidden behind 7 proxies or such. Not saying you are a criminal it just made me smile/chuckle when you mentioned routing Tor over VPN which is also going through another VPN which in turn is on Tor, etc.
I would have said he looks more like a young-looking mid-20s, no idea how old he actually is, couldn't find anything in my 5 seconds Google search. Out of interest how old is he then?
> A couple of months ago I did a 'homework' assignment for an interview (it involved writing a simple REST service in go, even though I have at least one personal project demonstrating exactly this skill -- to an even greater degree -- in my github profile).
I would have asked them to look at that code and ask me any question they have about it. If they are not willing to do that I wouldn't have bothered continuing the conversation with them.
> the mid 20-something lead developer
Okay I am going to do something I don't like to do which is judge somebody on their age but a "lead developer" at around 25? Sorry but unless that person is some rockstar programmer (conceived with a copy of K&R in the womb) I find it very hard to believe somebody 3-4 years out of uni has the experience to be a "lead" at very much.
> told me he thought I was a better programmer than him.
Well that is something I guess, at least he didn't think he was God's gift to the programming world!
> Now, what do you suppose happened next? I never heard from them again and all of my attempts at communication were ignored.
Yes drives me insane. It is so fucking rude.
> I'm starting to think my age is becoming a factor (mid 30s)
Could be, hopefully not but a company that puts a mid-20-something as the "lead" developer might only be interested in getting young and therefore cheap employees.
> and also these kids have no sense of respect and professional courtesy.
Very true. That is partly why I don't think a mid-20s person can be a "lead" for much as they don't have the professional experience to lead. A lead developer isn't just a great programmer but also a great leader. Somebody for the regular staff to look up to and rely on for mentorship.
> I'd like to say this was an isolated incident, but that would be a lie.
It happens to us all. Some companies (IT and other) are shit. It is just the way of the world. Don't dwell on it too much, it is just more mental energy wasted and they already wasted a whole Saturday of your life yet were not even respectful enough to call and say "you were great but we prefer this other person". I mostly hate having that conversation (giving and receiving) but it has to be done, it is about respecting that persons time and even though you are not offering them a job you can offer them feedback so they do not walk away from the process empty handed. Sometimes that feedback is all they need to better themselves in the future.
> Stupid me just spent his Saturday doing another such project, though at least this one presented a more interesting problem.
Live and learn. In the future if you already have demonstrations of your work then ask them to look at that first and if they want to continue the process then you look at doing something specific for them. At least you seem to have found a small positive from it in that the problem was interesting :)
> The fact that so many employers treat candidates like this tells me that the whole "it's hard to find good developers" line is a lie.
A lot of the problems with finding a good dev is just finding a good employee for the company as a whole. You might have a good developer who is an asshole and will only cause issues.
Anyway just move on and forget about them. It is cliché relationship advice but you deserve better than them.
Very true but in my experience the number of under 30 year olds who have the experience to be an effective lead developer is extremely small. Yes you get some amazing 20-somethings but more often than not it is just someone who was given the title rather than a proper pay rise or similar and they took it to make their CV look better. Of course it is just my personal opinion from my own experiences.
I'm 26 and have been the technical lead on my team for just over 2 years. Yeah, I'm relatively fresh out of university, but I have 17 years of programming experience under my belt. No, I don't consider myself a "rockstar" programmer. I just consider myself someone who has been programming for nearly two decades. I'm not the best programmer who ever lived, but I do think I'm pretty good at what I do.
Yes, over half my team members are older than me. However, most of them come from electrical engineering backgrounds and have less professional programming experience than I do. There is no friction, though. They're great guys, and they don't demonstrate any sort of ageist attitudes. There's definitely a level of mutual respect and trust, and I try to foster open communication throughout the team.
Three years out of university, I got an offer to be a senior software engineer and technical lead. It came with a 50% pay raise. I'll admit I had some reservations before taking the position. What if I'm not good enough? What if I fail? The thing is, the people who hired me (I was interviewed by no fewer than 7 different people at the company, all in one day), thought that I had the skills necessary to succeed (otherwise they wouldn't have offered me the position). I took the position and I'm glad I did.
It has been the best job I've ever had. Until now, I'd never worked in an environment that placed so much trust in, and demonstrated so much respect for, its employees. There's a good bit of freedom, and the company is very good at rewarding its employees for good work. My only complaint is that the development environment is less than ideal (Oracle Grid Engine, all work done in the cloud, Perforce, SAP, lots of shitty products to deal with in the development workflow). I'm only willing to put up with that because the nature of the job (and the people I work with) is so good otherwise.
Maybe you're right that the term "lead" is thrown around too much in our industry, but I don't think it's insane to put a young person in such a position as long as they're otherwise qualified. As an aside, if you're ever doubting yourself, listen to what your peers are telling you!
27 years old lead, reporting in. Just curious if you would tell me I'm no lead material.
Now, on one hand, I dropped out and been in the industry (gamedev) for the last ten years. On the other hand, I've actually been on designer and producer positions for the first 6. But then again, on the third hand, I was programming non-stop since 8 and turned in MIX emulator (from Knuth's books) as a school project at 15.
So, may be we can at least agree that any broad statements about professional level of huge groups of people united only by their age, race, country of origin or other unrelated stuff are unlikely to be true for everyone in that group, because people are unique and deserve to be judged individually?
Of course we can agree on that. However I hope you will also agree with me in that the term "lead" for many things gets thrown around quite easily in the tech world.
What annoys me is I often see companies promote an inexperienced (due to age) developer to lead or architect or some other title when they are really not that at all. The company does it to keep the person happy [read: shut them up] with a title rather than pull out the company wallet and pay more. I know dozens, maybe even in the hundred+, people who were duped into that. Often because "it will look amazing on your CV!" or "we promise we will review your pay if things work out in 6 months" in the hope you forget about it or don't want to bring it up.
The problem I have with this is that it devalues the actual lead, architects, whatever the current trendy title is.
I look at it this way - A lead developer could be lead on a very important bit of software that somehow fits into something that could cause loss of life. If it were a structural engineer they wouldn't just be promoted to a lead architect after a couple of years in the game. Same with a surgeon or registrar or a judge or detective or ... the list is very long! Except in IT for some reason.
I do not mean to belittle anyone who is a lead developer and under 30. Good for you if you really are skilled and experienced enough to truly deserve that title, my problem is over the years I would say a good 90% of those "lead" somethings under 30 are not deserving of the title.
> However I hope you will also agree with me in that the term "lead" for many things gets thrown around quite easily in the tech world.
Hm, actually I haven't seen it. For me, "lead" has a very exact meaning: a developer who is personally responsible for code that developers people write, and has authority appropriate to that responsibility.
In my experience a lead developer is the primary contact and owner for a specific feature or program. This person should know everything about what they are lead of inside out, they make decisions on design and implementation. They are able to support members of the team that are below them. They can delegate work to those in their team. Review the work done and offer constructive feedback. Communicate their ideas and vision to those below and above them. Present their ideas and concerns to management and stakeholders with ease.
So there are a few buzzwords in that but that is pretty much my personal experience of what a lead developer should be.
I think part of the problem is that there is no industry standard definition of what a lead developer is. It has been my experience it is abused in the ways I mentioned in my previous post.
Again this is all just my personal experience. We are all shaped by our history and though we try and not judge people automatically it will happen from time to time.
Reading that KB article and Microsoft are being total dicks with such complicated instructions when they could have offered a download to a tiny program which simply allows the user to opt-out of all upgrade prompts for N months.
