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Does anyone else feel like mobile apps are too cheap to purchase?
almost 6 years ago from Alex Hoffman, Product Designer
Matthew O'Connor, almost 6 years ago
On this iPad I have about 10 installed apps (all productivity and design apps, no games or crap), in folders, all accessible from the dock. Nothing on the main springboard page. This means I can open any of my apps with a swipe up form anywhere. That plus a further view of all open apps with another swipe up - and the old 5 fingers to swipe to the old apps - makes multi tasking much more fluid.
The finder having an iCloud folder is the beauty for me. As any drawing I do can be saved to iCloud and become easily accessable from my laptops finder. The Adobe apps also have a push to your comp (that even opens closed apps) which is also snappy for handing off between design phases.
I got into design because I can use a computer and started from the pure aesthetics side. I'm not a fan of paper, which is why I upgraded to a whiteboard desk, but the added need to digitally process that - with photos or redrawing in sketch - was a bit of a bottle neck. I also make a lot of mistakes, which means I have to redraw stuff and waste a lot of paper. That is mitigated with a digital workspace.
I'm also excited to use this device whilst watching tv to doodle and learn to draw better. And I'm also playing around with building a custom typeface of my own hand writing in Adobe Illustrate. I have a typographic grid as an image layer and above that drawing in my handwriting as vectors.
This is definitely not a tool for everyone, but it is fitting into my workflow/life simply and increasing my time designing a lot.
Cristian Moisei, almost 6 years ago
I see. Well thanks for sharing your workflow. I'll keep the pro iPad in mind and watch it as it gets better over the years. For now, my iPad is more than perfect for what I use it - reading, browsing the web, games
Maybe it's better on the pro with all the accessories (which, if your company pays for, are great, but otherwise you'd have to be insane to spend £877 on the smallest iPad), but after trying iOS 11 on my iPad, I don't feel there's much there. Yes the dock is nice but does it bring any new functionality or save us that much time? Multitasking is more or less the same as it was in iOS10. Does the Files icon really do anything if you don't use exclusively Apple apps?
There are notable improvements, don't get me wrong, but it is definitely not worth the huge price hike.
Speaking of process though, I always found it easier to use pen and paper because writing is something we've been doing for thousands of years, whereas digital devices are less than a few decades old, so it feels way more natural and intuitive to sketch on paper. Do you not find it cumbersome? Again, you have the pro so I'm comparing using Adobe Comp with my finger vs sketching not using the Apple Pencil at a refresh rate so high it feels like real paper.