Google Docs works surprisingly well in Safari on iPadOS The Verge

I had a few quick time truly the use of an iPad Pro walking iPadOS the day past, and one of the first matters I did become open up a Safari tab Apple had awaiting me: a Google Doc. Google Docs has lengthy been a big problem on the iPad, for 2 reasons. First, Google’s personal iPad app is god-lousy and the organisation seems hell-bent on no longer updating it to paintings higher. Second, Google Docs in Safari on the iPad proper now redirects you to that app even in case you “Request Desktop Site.”

On iPadOS, but, Google Docs in Safari appears superb.

Admittedly, I most effective spent approximately five mins poking around, but I went straight for the stuff I didn’t anticipate to work in any respect — and it worked. Keyboard shortcuts for formatting and header styling, comments, cursor placement, or even looking actual-time edits from another person within the document all worked.

Since local apps usually work higher than net apps on the iPad, I could nonetheless in all likelihood decide on Google restoration its app. Still, that is leaps and boundaries higher than any Google Docs experience at the iPad before and may be a large boon for every person who depends on it for their work.

As for the way Apple pulled this off, I even have a few answers and quite a few questions.

Answers first: Apple is setting the “consumer agent” (the issue browsers use to tell web sites what they're) to the computing device version of Safari. That manner web sites received’t default to serving their cellular variations due to the fact they see an iOS-based browser. After that, even though, Apple is optimizing that web site to paintings with contact (and the iPad’s keyboard). So it turned into quite smooth to hit all of Google Docs’ menu buttons, and keyboard shortcuts had been no trouble.

Now, questions: to optimize these sites for touch, Apple says it is doing some re-rendering of the internet site at the fly to ensure they paintings on the iPad’s display. I don’t know whether or not the contact optimization is part of that or if it’s some other layer on top. It probably doesn’t remember unless one of the answers there method a speed hit on slower or older iPads.

The biggest question, of course, is whether Safari on iPadOS is really “computer class” in the way that Chrome OS or Safari at the Mac are. Is Apple simply taking what is still at bottom its supercharged mobile browser and ensuring it's far optimized for typically used computer web sites? Is it genuinely some thing just like the complete computer Safari codebase at the iPad?

I have a tendency to assume it’s the former, however that doesn’t always suggest it’s a hassle. We will must wait until the respectable release to discover just how “computing device class” this model of Safari absolutely is.

The backside line is that it looks as if Apple has heard quite a few the precise complaints approximately iOS on the iPad during the last yr (USB drives, internet apps, limited text enhancing) and brought steps to repair those specific troubles. That whack-a-computer virus method won't be what people in reality asked for, however it’s truly possible that the stop result could be the equal: it’s going to be more difficult to argue that the iPad isn’t a “actual” pc.

Let's block commercials! (Why?)

//www.theverge.com/2019/6/4/18652163/google-docs-ipad-ipados-safari-apple-wwdc-2019
2019-06-04 15:53:55Z
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