Files and networking
Someone hands you a USB stick when you’re in a meeting and asks you to take a look at a file on it. You have your iPad Pro with you; you shrug your shoulders. It simply isn’t possible to transfer files from a USB thumb drive to the iPad Pro. Yes, there are plenty of iOS-specific storage devices around, but until you can access any old storage device on an iPad Pro, or everyone has shifted to the cloud, it’s a barrier for work.
How about Android devices? If you’re lucky enough to have one that supports USB On The Go, and you’ve remembered to bring your adapter along, and you happen to have a file manager app such as ES File Explorer installed, you’re in luck. (I’m using the word “luck” very loosely here.) Yes, you might just be able to view that file. But still, the ability to browse files isn’t built-in. It isn’t part of the core OS, which means the experience isn’t as slick as it might be.
With local network connectivity, it’s a similar story. On Android, you have to install a file manager app. This time iOS obliges, but you still need to install a third-party app. For the record, File Browser is a good choice. It provides one place where you can connect to NAS drives, shared network folders and photos in local storage. You can even use File Browser to access cloud-based files.
Once again, though, since it isn’t part of the core OS, file operations remain clunky and slow, particularly when moving files around in bulk.
The other problem with this is that iOS doesn’t make the file system accessible to apps as a universal resource, so apps have to make their own copies of files in their own little pool of storage space. For large files in particular, on a device such as an iPad that has limited non-expandable storage, this is hardly the ideal situation. And it’s a nightmare if you need other people to work on a file.
“The question is, are any of the creative tools on iPads full replacements for their desktop equivalents? The answer: absolutely not”
Full-bore creativity
Apple makes great play of the fact that iPads can be a tool for creativity as well as consumption – and, to be fair, iPads are excellent at certain things. Top-quality music tools abound on the App Store, for instance, as do photo-editing, sketching, videoediting and 3D design tools of varying quality. This is something Google Play lacks. The depth and breadth of creative apps you can run on the App Store is far more impressive, and there’s a good selection of apps from creative software giant Adobe in there, too.
The question is, are any of these full replacements for their desktop equivalents? The answer: absolutely not. Even the simple task of cropping and aligning items prove beyond the Adobe apps, and this isn’t due to a lack of clever features or overall quality, but a lack of basic features, such as snapping, fine-tuning via cursor keys and alignment guides.
The iPad Pro tablets are so powerful, it’s possible to edit and produce 4K movies using the iMovie app, but you’ll soon hit frustrating problems.
Once again, it’s the little things that make the big difference. iMovie’s touch controls are slow and clunky, and aren’t precise enough for the fine adjustments you need to make when cutting clips together. Its range of effects and tools is limited. And working with large video files on a machine that doesn’t allow you to connect directly to high-speed storage means you’ll run out of space in no time at all.
How about using Android to edit video? That’s a bust, due mainly to the fact that there isn’t a good-quality video editor on Google Play worth bothering with.
Final thoughts
This isn’t a definitive list of iOS and Android’s shortcomings, and much of it is based on my personal experience, but it does paint a clear picture: neither iOS nor Android are ready for the world of work just yet.
The hardware is in place. It’s powerful enough, and the battery life can last all day. But the software? Despite Apple and Google’s bold claims, it’s a long way off.