Note taking and research on iPad Pro 3rd gen 12.9-inch

Testing Notes, YouTube, Pages for note taking and casual research on iPad Pro 3rd gen 12.9-inch.

★ ★ ★Testing software on iPad Pro 2018 3rd gen 12.9 inch

I love the idea of portable workstation; the idea of a well-rounded device that can accompany a person to variety of different environments. I am not only worker. I am not only student. I do chill out sometimes but so get creative.

IPad Pro with its new OS looked so promising to me at one point that I decided to go and buy it. The thought of having such a light device for everything – News, YouTube, school, java and web development – just caught my interest and I could not resist it.

Then it arrived.

This is a series on iPad Pro 2018 3rd gen 12.9-inch software testing on iPad OS 13.1.3. The applications that are included in the videos are mostly applications I use on daily basis and are the integral part of my workflow.



★ ★ ★Written after testing:

Using iPad Pro 3gen 12.9-inch for work had a serious negative impact on my workflow. It could not accomplish my daily tasks. Most of the productivity-work ended up being half baked or completely avoided as I was not able to progress towards finishing them using the available apps.

My daily workflow is composed of some recreational web browsing, texting, reading news and university materials, taking notes, updating or developing my websites, using MATLAB and Java Virtual Environment and using XAMP/WAMP for local web development.

If I was to build a list of those tasks and marked down the ones I was able to do and the ones I could not do it would go like this:

♥ Yes - Web browsing
♥ Yes - Texting
♥ Yes - Reading news, books and uni materials
♥ Yes - Taking notes
❥ Nope - Updating or developing my websites
❥ Nope - Using Matlab (or only in a very limited way)
❥ Nope - JVE
❥ Nope - XAMP/WAMP

As it seems the iPad Pro 3rd gen 12.9-inch is a good companion for an everyday surfer or for a not very demanding user. Nonetheless, my experience when going through the everyone’s dailies was exasperating. I could surf the web nicely, watch YouTube, take notes without glitches when using these applications individually. The multitasking killed my enthusiasm though. Using the third-party apps for better workflow led me to facing many glitches when being in split screen mode.

The native applications are great. They work as well individually as in the multitasking mode. However, they are limited and it is not nice place to be at. If you go to third-party apps for help you end-up caught in a glitch. Unfortunate.

Microsoft Office on iPad Pro is so Bad. It supports only a fraction of gestures and the user interface is very limited compare to the desktop apps. The native alternative for Word is Pages. It is a great app, developed for the iPad OS environment. It truly understands you needs but comes chopped down to very simple user interface. Although it is very simple, it supports drag and drop of pics which can be resized, you can type and hand write on the same page.

The reading experience is amazing. The display provides very nice contrast, clarity. The display kind of resembles paper.

There cannot be a say about some serious work on iPad Pro for a STEM student or a developer. Working with MATLAB while following some instruction in another app in the overlapping mode cost me a few years of life. The text in the overlapping window is so small. The text can be resized, the window cannot. It is like looking at the world through a toilet roll (you know, the pipe hole). Massively unfortunate.

I tried to develop web applications on iPod Pro. There are code editors that have quite good reviews. The downside is that they are not free. I imagine that they work through a remote development. The code editor syncs with the web server through FTP and upload the files whenever saved. It is doable but why to put yourself deliberately through hell?

I tried Java too and when looking for some Java Environment in the app store I got and empty screen.

I miss command line.

My overall impression of iPod Pro 3rd gen 12.9-inch is very much like looking for the delicious forest strawberries and blueberries but getting mushrooms instead. Life does not need to end like this. We know what iPad Pro is not. We can also say what iPad Pro is = a good reusable paper, a good place for a painter to be at or an art student.

We dare to say that iPad pro will be what I want it to be.

The screen casting functionality is awesome.

My favorite apps are: Termius, Notes, Pages, Adobe Sketch. Those apps are is in fact excellent.

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