Benefits of an I pad?

I use my iPad 9 gen with an Apple smart keyboard. Is not the same with a regular keyboard. Do use it for facebook, movies, and news. It is OK but nothing to write home about it. The keyboard is not as great and it could be better. Was expecting better from an Apple keyboard.

iPads have distinct advantages over phones in that they can run a huge library of software formatted for the larger screen. The best smartphone software does an impressive job of presenting information on such a small screen. But iPad apps have no such restrictions, so the software looks and operates more like conventional computer software. Yet iPads are significantly lighter than typical laptops.

I've used mine mostly for listening to podcasts/radio programs, and for FaceTime audio calls. The iPhone can do all of this, of course. However, the iPad doesn't have a proximity sensor that switches to the "earpiece" for audio output whenever it is triggered - it just uses its main speaker, which is what I want. Even if I set the iPhone to use the main speaker for audio during calls, activating the proximity sensor still interferes with it - and you can do that simply by touching the upper part of the touch screen.

I also appreciate the additional controls that can fit on the larger display. For instance, in the Settings app, the list of categories fits right alongside the options for the currently selected category, so that less navigation between settings screens is needed.

It's an old iPad, but I'm glad it still works.

Honestly, if you're using the ipad as a secondary device like that for music and reading and such, I wouldn't even bother with the keyboard. If you're good on an iphone, learning to use a mini won't be a problem. There's really no difference, other than the fact that the layouts of some apps might be different, for example you might see sidebars in certain apps.

I'd guess just teaching yourself to explore more by touch and learning where things are a bit more on the screen you should be fine.

If you really do want to control it mainly from a keyboard, you certainly can, but it probably will be a bit of a learning curve from Jaws.

Frankly, I've never liked iPads, even though I tried. Swiping just seems less reliable, and unless you buy an expensive iPad pro or something, the sound isn't that great. If you can see it at all, an iPad would be worth it; if you just want a second device, buy yourself a new phone and keep the old one around.

after two years trying to like my iPad and get used to it, I just simply gave it away. Although the screen is bigger, the keyboard does not seem to have larger touch targets than a phone, or not much. I had a hell of a time typing on an iPad and never any problem on the screen of an iPhone. I don't believe a keyboard can do everything that you can do with swiping. At least, I couldn't find keyboard shortcuts to fully navigate the interface. That's probably just me. iPadOS has a few things that iPhone doesn't, like command tab, but certainly not everything you would get with an actual computer. I bought mine for precisely the same reason as you: wanted to spare the battery life for things like bard and music playback. but it never turned out to be useful for me at all and I just kept using the phone. I like the idea of just keeping an old phone around for this purpose, maybe by the nightstand. in the end, though, I just don't worry about it and drain the battery on the phone. I've had my iPhone 11 for two years now and the battery life remains fantastic. finally, perhaps the biggest annoyance for me on iPad is that it insists on a split screen interface. For example, in the settings app, the settings categories are going to be either on the left half of the screen or the top half, depending on orientation. So, it's easy to get lost as it were and have trouble finding what you need. By you, I just mean me, actually. Really hated it Chris is also right about the speaker on an iPad mini not being as good as on an iPhone as always, your experience might be very different than mine

My iPad is my daily reading companion. For me, it is such a great device to read books and write whenever I feel lazy to grab my Mac. Now people spend hundreds of dollars on the reading devices like the Victor Stream, so wondering why not an iPad. Back in 2019, it was my daily driver, I got the iPad Por on its launch, but it did not last me well. There are many issues with keyboard navigation and text editing. Aside from that, my iPad is great, very great for reading books, listening to media, and writing. A laptop replacement no, a phone replacement yes.

I’ve had iPads for years and do not regret it.

I am typing this on my phone on a Logitech K780 keyboard. I have the iPad for listening to books and jamming while grilling. In fact, Party Animal is ready to go when I grill some chicken in a few minutes. I had it so I can use my phone to check the grill temperature and other things that would get in the way of music.
Connect that puppy to a couple JBL Charge 4’s and you’re all set!

btw, assuming you're logged into iCloud, focus modes not do not disturb automatically apply to all your devices. But you can individually turn off notifications on one or the other. As far as I could tell, most of the iPad OS differences were things like split screen multitasking (not useful for us, I don't think) and using the iPad as a second display. Not sure I noticed any other useful feature differences.
Personally, whenever I tried to do word processing, I would invariably brush the screen with a finger and my focus would go flying off someplace, requiring me to explore back into the text field; whereas, the iPhone would only have the text field on the screen, so not an issue. So, yeah, my own experience, not productive as I'd hoped.

From reading through all of the posts, it should be clear that the decision to buy an iPad is as much personal preference as anything else. I use my iPad Pro with a Bluetooth keyboard; it's simply too large to use the screen for the epically long periods of time I use it for. Almost anything I can do on my phonem I can do on my iPadm which for me is a plus. Plusm, there are games, especially ones that put your devices into landscape, that are much easier to play on iPad, and text editing is much, much easier with a physical keyboard. My advice for anyone contemplating buying an iPad is to go with what feels right. If you want a device that can step in when you don't feel like opening and booting up your laptop, buy a keyboard and go to town with an iPad Pro. If you just want a media consumption device, get a Mini and forget about the keyboard.

First, I'll say what I'm about to say has very little relevance to the original question this poster asked. I'm pretty sure an Ipad could work for the simple tasks you want, the way you're using the iPhone already should work for the mostpart and honestly a Bluetooth keyboard probably won't take long to learn for basic tasks.

I do want to say for the record, though, that the comments about iPad multi-tasking being useless for Voiceover users, and the screen size not being important is completely a matter of opinion and how you use an iPad.

For me, my keyboard is almost exclusively used for typing, and I use the iPad mainly by touch. And by touch I mean I move my hands over the whole screen. It's completely automatic for me to move my hand down the left hand side of the settings app, for example, tap the section I want, then move my hand over to the right hand side and use it. This applies to mail and RSS and anything else that uses the sidebars. I don't know why, but I find it a much smoother experience overall than having things open a new screen every time.

The same applies to multi-tasking. Yes, if you use your keyboard to split screen multi-task, it probably feels like there's no point, since there's not much difference between command-tabbing between apps and switching between two apps on the same screen with keyboard commands.

On the other hand, for me, when it works, it feels like the two apps become one app. For example, when I was entering a bunch of my ePub books into a database. Move my hand to the left where I had the files app, find the name of the ePub, move my hand right to the database app and search for it and add it. For me, it's impossible to describe. It feels smooth, fluid, and lets me finally actually understand why having multiple windows with multiple apps on the screen is so efficient.

And finally, it's the efficiency of it that I love. Once I've used an app for a while, I know where the options I want are, and I can touch the screen right where that thing is. No swiping, no tabbing, no jumping between containers. It's brilliant. I know there's almost no-one who feels like this about an iPad, but honestly, it's been my primary machine for at least 6 years now and I've just bought another one. If it had been practical for me, I'd've bought a 12.9, but that's just not portable enough. I'm kind of dreading the day I have to go back to a traditional machine with a keystroke based screen reader, since it'll probably feel like moving through quicksand.

As I said, it's all opinion. Learning to work the way I do on an iPad takes work and time, and obviously if you don't like something you don't like it, but to blanket say something is pointless or impossible shuts the door on something that for some people could be awesome.

Hi,

I'm Brian, and I approve this message. 🧐

I am totally blind and love my iPad pro. I use it along with the Brydge keyboard case, and it makes a really nice setup. However, sometimes I also like taking the iPad out of the Brydge and just using it as an iPad. I actually really like Braille Screen Input on the iPad in table top mode. Having used a mac before, as well as currently, it was not hard to learn keyboard commands, although it is not a one to one comparison between Mac OS and iPad OS.
I also have a 2018 macbook air. I know the Apple chips are much more powerful, but I needed intel to dual boot, as I never liked Windows in a virtual machine. I had the m1 air before, had to sell due to some financial difficulties, and just recently got the 2018 air, and absolutely love it.
I use the ipad and the macbook in different ways. The macbook is great, because I can dual boot both Mac and Windows. I like doing short audio projects where I need to apply more effects on the mac with Amadeus Pro, but longer, yet more basic stuff I work on, works way better on the iPad, as export times on the iPad Pro absolutely blow the intel mb air out of the water. Also, I love using the jetpack app on the iPad to approve and publish articles to my web site.
Battery life on the m2 Pro ipad is also a lot better than the MB Air.
Since I got the macbook, the iPad has been relegated to more of a media device, but before I got the air, the iPad Pro, apart from doing radio stufff on a Windows desktop, was my primary device for a bit, and it came so close to being all I needed. If the NVDA Remote app would have been slightly bettter, and if the Brydge would have had standard function keys, instead of the iPad specific ones, then it would have been the perfect setup. What I ended up doing was replacing the desktop with bootcamp on the macbook air, and now I’m good to go. But the iPad still very much has its place in my work flow.
If you don’t need the Pro performance, you can go for the mini like has already been suggested, but the Brydge keyboard case for the Pro is so nice, delivers a great typing experience, and does make the iPad a lot more computer like. If I didn’t do radio stuff, I could have ditched the macbook completely and made the iPad my primary device. For just email, web browsing, basic apps, the iPad is awesome. In fact, with some of the changes made to Quicknav in Sonoma, I actually like web browsing better on the iPad.

I have an iPad 9. It is good but not great. I use it for long messages in iMessages and facebook. For typing. Is nice but nothing to call home about it. Mostly use my desk top PC with windows with a wireless keyboard that works well. Using it now for this from my couch.

I decided to purchase an 11 inch iPad Pro during lockdown. I got the 2019 version. Originally i got it to use minly as a media center for things like Netflix, audible, Apple TV+, etc. Now it has replaced my mac. I got the pro for the speakers. The skund quality is incredible, and since I have a hearing impairment, great sound is very important. When I need a new one, I'll stick with the pro model.

I had issues with the typing experience on 2 different iPads and 2 different keyboards (one being an Apple Smart Keyboard and another being a Logitech Slim Folio). No matter what I did, it would glitch out - for example, I would begin to type H for Hello and it would go to Home. I had Full Keyboard Access turned off, too.

I ended up trading in my iPad 9th gen which I bought to replace my 10.5 iPad Pro.
I could have replaced the keyboard, but for $200+ I couldn't justify it in case the same thing happened again.

It was really disappointing - I was hoping to use it as a more portable means of drafting stories, reading recipes, social media/iMessage. My laptop is 15.6" so she's a bit chonky, but I can manage, just feels a bit cumbersome if I want to bring her to libraries and such.

I'd love to buy another iPad but I'm worried about the same thing with the keyboard happening. Not sure if I'm the only one.

It appears all modern ipads no longer include the home button. This appears to be a trend, and if this bothers you, either find workarounds such as assigning custom gestures, or ditch Apple like I plan to do very soon. I'm tired of their elitist attitude! I guarantee the next iPhone SE won't have a home button or fingerprint reader either. Apple does what they want to do, and if you don't like it, that's too bad!

Playing around with my keyboard the other day, I found an article about keyboard shortcuts added in iPadOS15 that peaked my interest. I couldn't get any of these to work on my iPhone, either with the key on the bottom of my keys-to-go, or by trying to reassign another modifier to the globe key. This tells me that all the keyboard shortcut love goes to the iPad and not the iPhone.

I don't know how many of these shortcuts also have VO equivalents, but they sound helpful when you're using a BT keyboard. I'll have to try to find someone's iPad to borrow and see if everything works with my keyboard and if I like it.

A mini would be perfect in theory because I wouldn't have to get any extra accessories with it. It would probably just slot nicely into the removable stand that my keys-to-go has, sans a case. And for the times I wouldn't want to bring the keyboard, it sounds like table top BSI would work well.

The experience using a bluetooth keyboard can be a pain. The iPad is not a replacement for a laptop. I like my iPad but I do conbination of touching screen and keyboard. The commands for using the apple are a joke. Although she who should not be name can use it with her noce. She likes the iPad when I have it on.

@singer girl You may want to consider using either Assistive Touch or VoiceOver gestures. The iPhone 11 I have has been customized so a four-finger single tap goes home, and double tapping goes to the App Switcher. A four-finger swipe up goes to Control Center, and down is for Notification Center. I use Assistive Touch to allow me to quickly restart iOS, since this isn't available anywhere in the system natively. You can double tap and hold on the Assistive Touch icon and drag it around if you want to put it somewhere easy to access. I'd still prefer touch buttons for these actions like on Android, but this is the best we can do. I see no reason why these wouldn't work on the iPad as well. For me, though, I absolutely despise! Face ID and the weird slide gestures! The only reason I have an iPhone 11 is because it was my sister's phone. I'd never buy one of these personally. I loved the iPod Touch which is now dead, and I fear the classic SE design with the home button will follow sooner rather than later.

Regarding the ipad, I can't imagine a practical use for a blind user, but that's just me. It's way too big, with far too much room for touch targets. The only advantage you may get is more room to type Braille on the touch screen. As has been pointed out, it's really sad these devices are so powerful, yet locked down by a mobile OS. Why can't I run virtual machines, unlock the bootloader to install other operating systems, and so much more on a supposedly "Pro" device?

Assistive Touch is accessible with VoiceOver, though you'll have to add extra taps. For example, the single tap action requires a VoiceOver double tap, while double requires a triple tap. You also need to find the Assistive Touch icon by touch, not swiping.
Based on what I've heard, controlling VoiceOver with Voice Control seems very cumbersome. I'm not a fan of "VoiceOver navigation next or what ever the commands are. It's also not very practical for me, as I have a stutter which confuses voice recognition technology due to me either taking too long to speak, or getting stuck on certain sounds.
It always amazes me how committed to accessibility Apple claims to be, yet user choice isn't a consideration. If we're all diverse, that should mean our individual choices and customization options should be respected. however, removing the headphone jack, home button, and Touch ID in favor of weird slide gestures and facial recognition sure doesn't seem like respecting preferences. How about leaving the choice up to the user? Oh wait, that's not how Cupertino operates.

Hi all,
I got an iPad purely for reading books on Kindle, listening to radio stations, watching Youtube and some TV stuff, and reading books on audible. I was using my phone and computer for literally everything, especially my phone for leisure, and it was getting to the point that my battery was running down all the time so something had to be done. I didn't want a Victor Reader Stream; I like using mainstream stuff whenever possible. I use my iPad all the time for reading and listening to audio books etc., and I wouldn't go back. I'll be buying another one when this one dies. I don't like the way some apps are displayed like Spotify, so I still use that on my phone or computer, but overall I don't regret my purchase at all. I did buy a keyboard case for the iPad, but I never really got on with it. I thought I might be doing some writing on it, but I never have. I agree with the comments about things being taken away like touch ID and the headphone jack etc.. I'm used to face ID and the slide things but I don't really like them. I want the Home button back. I think the user should be able to choose whether they want touch ID or face ID. Face ID doesn't work for me half the time, /(I really think it's a question of having good coordination or not since some people have no issues with face ID). I've got the iPad Air 2020, and the touch ID is part of the power button, but that doesn't seem to be the case with the newer iPads now.