Originally Posted By: jazzmammal
<...> That leaves the basic tablet functions that makes IOS and Android equal.

Bob

Thanks Bob. That can save me money.

I downloaded a number of music apps when I first got the iPad, and I admit, Garage Band was fun to play with for a while, then it got boring. The rest of the music apps I downloaded got perhaps 2-3 hours of play each at most. Some were too simple, some were just lame apps that begged for in-line purchases (not that I'm opposed to purchasing something I plan to use, but they were lame).

Leilani and I went to Australia this year and I took about 800 pictures. I wanted to move about 250 of them to the iPad to show to my family when we get together around Thanksgiving. I bought the Lightning to USB interface and found I still couldn't transfer the photos to the iPad.

With lots of googling I found I need iTunes to do this. I had iTunes when I had an iPod and really disliked it. So I searched for alternative methods, and they were not to my liking - too complicated or didn't work.

Solution, put a folder up on my web site, upload the pictures I wanted to transfer to the iPad (I found I had to shrink/resize them as +-6M hi-rez pictures take too long to upload/download), then go to each web page, one at a time, download and save to the camera roll in the iPad.

So what should have taken about 15 minutes unattended took many hours, 10 minutes here, 5 minutes there, and in about a month it was done.

It's enough to make me dislike Apple. Don't get me wrong, Apple makes good hardware but while everybody else goes to universal standards, Apple tries it's hardest to be non-compatible in order to keep Apple people from buying anything competitive. And they've been that way since my first Mac computer (Classic II) that you couldn't even get into the case without a tool that Apple only sold to authorized Apple repair centers.

OK, enough Apple Rant. For those who like them and don't want to use anything but Apple, they are fine.

On stage I use ThinkPad laptops, my 2002 XP ThinkPad still plays my backing tracks and displays words and/or music charts, my newer Win7 does the same thing (one of my 2002 ThinkPads had an accident that messed up the hinge).

I use the newer, more powerful ThinkPads at home. They are quite reliable.

I thought about switching the ThinkPads to tablets on stage, but I like having the separate keyboard. While one file is playing, I can Alt-Tab which brings up file explorer, type a couple of letters which highlights the next song to play, when the first one is done, hit Enter and the next one starts immediately. When the dance floor is full, immediate is good.

Since I got the iPad in 2015 I'm happy with the service it's giving me. Apple does build good hardware, and my iPad is still working well. When it dies (everything has an expiration date) I'll look at the other options.

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