Comment by pier25
13 hours ago
> it's pretty easy for college students to justify this plus an iPad
Why would you want an iPad?
The Neo can run iPad apps and it's small enough that it can be used in most situations where you'd typically use a tablet (bed, couch, etc).
Only if you want to take notes with a pen and prefer digital over paper. For me that's terrible, but some kids swear by it. I think if I grew up on it, it'd be different.
Homework for things like algebra and later calculus definitely is interesting to do on an iPad, as the ratio of time spent thinking:writing is high while you're learning.
But pure notetaking where the thinking:writing ratio is very low? I'd much prefer to type than write on a screen.
As an iPad owner I would probably use it for taking handwritten notes if the handwriting recognition was reliable enough for text search. But it's not, and the search feature in Apple Notes is the absolute minimum to be called "search". It can only search from the beginning of words, so typing "oo" will never find "foo". Better apps exist but they all come with a subscription of some kind.
I am clearly not the target audience for the iPad. Being restricted to apps and what they allow you to do while asking for money at every corner is not my cup of tea.
That's a lot of money for a small amount of use cases, get a $70 Wacom.
You'll look like a mega nerd if you pull that out in a classroom, assuming you even have the desk space. Not to mention the qol improvement of having your pen touch the screen you're drawing on.
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the difference between writing on a screen and writing on an external tablet is hard to overstate...
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also, they still sell paper notebooks )
If digital version is important, there are probably some scanning apps.
Grad student here. The paper-reading experience on an iPad is vastly superior to a laptop, and I've got an aging iPad Gen 8 that doesn't have enough storage to upgrade. I run the Zotero iOS app and it's absolutely perfect for annotating papers and keeping my bibliography organized.
In undergrad my iPad was far and away my favorite note-taking device. Digital pen-and-"paper" beats laptop for 99% of note taking.
iPads are pretty common in education for the drawing capabilities. You can take notes by typing for most things, but when you get diagram/math heavy, you just cannot beat the pencil. I think it's probably pretty poor value of the small ability you gain to cost, relative to other things you could do (I like paper/pencil personally) but I see the use case, if limited.
Have iPads really replaced paper in college? I haven’t been on campus in a decade so I wouldn’t know
Not iPads specifically, but digital devices. I did a show of hands poll in a big university course a couple of weeks ago, and 70-80% of students are writing their maths notes on a digital device. iPad is most popular, but Surface and other Windows devices are also popular, quite a few use Android (as do I for my lectures), and a tiny number use ReMarkable or other e-paper. Many students bring both a tablet and laptop to class, and I see handwritten notes viewed on non-handwriting laptops pretty often while they're writing other things on a tablet.
A lot of lower division math and computer science courses now presuppose iPads or other digital pen devices for working through handouts during lecture. Printed handouts are often available at request, but not the expectation / default.
On the other hand, I've seen more professors — especially in the humanities, but also upper div CS — start banning devices in lecture partially or altogether. Complete distraction (scrolling Instagram, etc.) during lecture is extremely prevalent, and they keep citing noticeable improvements in engagement after banning devices. This also coincides with a shift back to less take-home assignments and more exam-style assessment since they want greater assurance people aren't completely offloading their cognition to LLMs.
I haven't been on campus in a few years but even then paper was basically absent on campus. A class where a professor wouldn't allow tablets or laptops to take notes would be an aberration and a PITA. I remember I had to write like a paper check once and I had to physically go buy a pen since neither I nor anyone around me had a regular writing utensil on hand.
The exception was when people were taking orgo or a diagram heavy class. For that semester not everyone would have a tablet and some people would have pens and pencils. Or writing classes that still required a handwritten essay for the final exam
Yes, iPads (at least at my university) are incredibly common. I would guess they’re at least on-par with paper. So many people swear by Goodnotes because you get all the benefits of handwriting your notes without giving up the niceties of search-ability, auto correct, etc.
I don’t know anyone who uses any other tablet besides an iPad, they’ve basically conquered the market.
Not necessarily replaced. Some classes still ban all electronic devices unless you have some medical accommodation, this was in response to people not listening while being on their phones, tablets, and laptops.
> Why would you want an iPad?
At this point, there are more people taking notes on an iPad + Apple Pencil than on physical notebooks in my lectures
good info
The pen. 95% of the way our son does assignments now.
He’s off to university in Fall ‘26, and I’m waffling between getting him an Air and keeping his current iPad, or getting a neo and new iPad. Probably go the former because of the long term cost effectiveness of the Air.
The iPad is vastly better for reading and highlighting (with Pencil) class materials.
Reading whole books on a laptop tends to produce a ton of neck strain.
An eink display is vastly better for reading though. I only use the iPad for reading PDFs because Kindles are too small for that.
Agreed, I really prefer using my reMarkable 2. I see it less like an iPad and more like a bottomless pit of scratch paper and printouts that I can carry more conveniently than individual dead tree products. This is probably furthered by my not using their cloud subscription and using a USB cable or SSH to transfer files instead.
It's better for reading epubs/mobis.
iPads are better when you need to be constantly highlighting and making notes, like for school. And for PDF's you need to be panning and zooming.
That's why I'm rocking a Scribe. Do not really care much about note taking but my poor eyesight welcomes the bigger font size.
Why would reading on a laptop produce neck strain? Just sit comfortably.
The way people use laptops, the screens are generally much lower than they should be for good ergonomics.
iPads/Kindles are better because they're smaller and lighter so you can position them with far greater flexibility.
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The laptop is better in many situations as the screen stands on its own.
When reading in bed I use a stand to hold my Kindle at the best position. I would need a much heavier stand to be able to do that with my iPad.
> The Neo can run iPad apps
In theory yes, but in reality barely any developer (at least the mainstream ones) make their app available on MacOS, and nobody enjoys interacting with a touch-screen optimized app with mouse/trackpad
That's an odd choice (for said developers), given in most cases it's a matter of checking a box. The second half of your comment is a generalization though.
It makes it easier to pirate your app if you enable that checkbox. macOS attempts to disable iOS apps when SIP is disabled to prevent this but it's not difficult to bypass [1]. I don't necessarily agree with it but this probably does factor into their decision process.
[1] https://github.com/paradiseduo/appdecrypt
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We got my son a Mac Mini when he was 6. I was surprised at how many kid games just didn't work with the Mac, or how many did work but didn't support an external microphone and camera. I guess since most young kids have iPads or Chromebooks there's no market.
Many students nowadays may say "why would you need anything other than an iPad?" :-)
I used to use both...laptop for quick typing, and then the iPad for hand-written notes or annotation.
The OneNote app sync is quick enough that I could type lecture notes on the laptop, and then quickly switch to the same document on my iPad to sketch out a diagram. It was overkill for sure, but very useful
I mean at this point with the latest ones, an iPad Pro with it's keyboard/trackpad accessory and a pencil could probably manage both for you pretty damn well.
I just wish they'd let us run MacOS on iPads.
That's fair...actually totally slipped my mind that today this would be much more feasible to do on a single device.
>Why would you want an iPad?
Talk to Gen Z some time. They prefer tablet devices to laptops.
What's a computer?
when working?
yep
I have spent most of my life in a lazy couch posture and a laptop and keyboard doesn’t fit that lifestyle choice. I need to make more apps for people with my lifestyle choice, like IPad IDEs for development.
iPad + voice, this seems like my new lifestyle choice and it looks like it’s going to work out too.
I think human beings need to move away from sitting at the typewriter like it’s 1930. We’re more than this.
Laptop is way nicer for lazy couch work. I can sit there with it on my lap with my arms crossed and I don’t have to waste a hand just holding the damn thing up the entire time I use it. It is the ipad that is actually the nonlazy choice.
> I need to make more apps for people with my lifestyle choice, like IPad IDEs for development.
blink code to codeserver
https://docs.blink.sh/advanced/code
Ty!