Apple's First Android App, Move To iOS, Is Getting Killed With One-Star Reviews 206
An anonymous reader writes: Apple today launched Move to iOS, the company's first Android app built in-house. As we noted earlier, "It should surprise no one that the first app Apple built for Android helps you ditch the platform." The fact that the app is getting flooded with one-star reviews is not particularly surprising, either. At the time of publication, the app has an average rating of 1.8. The larger majority (almost 79 percent) are one-star reviews, followed by five-star reviews (almost 19 percent).
Dupe (Score:2)
This app, and the Android-fan 1-star reviews, is discussed ad nauseum already.
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Wait... you're saying crusty nerds are just hipsters? A clever disguise, the overgrown beards and body odour....
Re: Dupe (Score:5, Funny)
The competition has certainly been good. The features iOS has ripped off of Android are great. I can't believe it's been 8 years and we FINALLY have back button and a keyboard that shows us which case we're typing in.
It's a pity we can't discuss that without the word 'invent' being thrown around by everybody except Apple.
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You are seriously out of touch. You must either love Android, or you love iPhone, and you must hate the other with a passion. You must pick a side for the forthcoming religious Smartphone Wars, that will lay waste to the internet.
People like you will be shunned by both sides as contemptuous cowards. Your execution will be streamed for all to see, right after the shooting of the heretical Windows Phone users.
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The big fear is your choice will be irrelevant so all your investment financial and emotional in the product could be loss of the product is a dud. Like Zune, Apple Newton, BeOS, OS2 Warp...
If you got one of these dead end product you somehow feel embarrassed for jumping into the camp that didn't stay.
The fact that even these dead end product may have still been valuable to you.
Re: Dupe (Score:3)
No. Fapples love their phones. Fandroids are openly hostile to everyone else's phones.
Re: Dupe (Score:4, Interesting)
Poking fun at a group of people of which you are a member is not a form of hostility. Grow up.
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Oh the irony.
Indeed.
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That's just wimpy. If you really want to annoy an Apple fan try bringing up that the first iPhone they purchased was obsolete. The odds are pretty good that they purchased their first iPhone only a few months before the release of the next new whiz-bang model. Certainly soon enough to start hearing about how woopy and hooray it is but so soon that they'll have to wait more than a year to have their new shiny. Then, no matter what they paid (most paid $200 on contract, which is why your insult won't typi
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But it's true. They target below average tech users to make it simple and lock out everything, have terrible user-facing business practices (price gouging, price fixing, choice restriction) and generally rely on user ignorance.
Wrong.
They "target" average people, who, for the most part, are not particularly "technical".
They tend to not provide GUI controls for things that are more "dangerous" than useful for most people; but you can almost always still get to those features through the Command-Line
As far as the rest of your baseless rant; it doesn't even rate a response.
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When you get home from work go look up what 'fap' means.
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I wonder (Score:4, Insightful)
How many of the 5 star reviews are coming from users who already use IOS over andriod.
Re:I wonder (Score:5, Insightful)
I presume that all the 5-star reviews are from people happy about how easy this app made switching away from Android, and it will be their last Android app review.
Similarly, the 1-star reviews are from people who have not used the app, will not use the app, and have an odd desire to murder anyone who does use it.
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Yea, because IOS users would never troll Andriod users, it is always the other way around.
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Yea, because IOS users would never troll Andriod users, it is always the other way around.
Actually, by and large, most iOS users don't even acknowledge Android users. But the other way around...?
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I presume that all the 5-star reviews are from people happy about how easy this app made switching away from Android
Why would you presume that? Astroturfing is far more likely.
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Re:I wonder (Score:5, Informative)
In just skimming the top reviews, it looks like:
the 5 stars are mostly Apple fanboys who have never used Android but have invaded Google Play so that they can stick up for their platform of choice, despite having no device on which to actually use the app to see whether it works as described.
the 1 stars are mostly Android fanboys who have never used iOS but are posting reviews anyway so that they can stick up for their platform of choice, despite having no intention to switch platforms or use the app to see whether it works as described.
In a perfect world, app reviews would tell you whether the app does what it's supposed to do and how well it does it, then leave it up to other users to decide if that's something they want. In the real world, that actually useful information gets buried under thousands of pages of useless drivel between fanboys for each side.
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Obligatory:
https://xkcd.com/937/ [xkcd.com]
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In other words, this app has been flooded with fake reviews.
I'd suggest that's immature on both android users and iphone users' parts for misrepresenting their experience with the app.
That one may be able to extract an estimate of average maturity of android users compared to that of iphone users based on the fact that their complaints about the app so vastly outnumber the 5-star reviews and cross referencing that imbalance with the ratio of android users to iphone users in general is left as an exerci
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lol, if we're talking maturity...
Android users don't line up for hours to get a phone which is readily available.
Yes they do, though not to the extent Apple fans/fanboys do, of course. In fact, in several cases, Samsung has hired paid actors to line up on launch day, just so that they could generate launch day buzz in the news.
A lot of Android users care that you can't even HAVE a similar app on the i store because of APL's super-anti-competitive practices.
And that's a perfectly valid and reasonable concern to have. It should definitely be taken into account when choosing your platform of choice. But there are equally valid concerns on the other side as well (e.g. privacy, security, support lifetime, resaleability, etc.), plus others that favor An
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I believe the only requirement to review an app on the Play Store is a Google account. I say that because I don't have a Google+ account and Google keeps telling me (as recently as last week, in fact) I have to have one to leave developer feedback.
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ISTR the play store requiring you to have an app installed, or at least to have had it installed, before you can review it. But you could always just install to the emulator and then write a review.
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I went to the Google Play page from a desktop PC and saw the "Write a Review" button available. I didn't click it, but given that it was presented to me and that I don't have an Android device, I'd assume anyone at all would be able to write a review.
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How many of the 5 star reviews are coming from users who already use IOS over andriod.
And how many of the 1 star reviews come from Android users who hate iOS despite never having used it? ...welcome to the computer operating system holy wars [dilbert.com].
Must be why Apple is near bankruptcy. (Score:2)
Finally that mystery is solved.
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Why the F*** do you even want filesystem access? Wouldn't it be nice to not have to deal with all of that BS?
> being unable to download arbitrary content using a web browser
You've been able to do that since iOS 5 or 6, as long as you have an App that will handle the content you want to download, or a storage app that will let you manage and browse arbitrary content (See Dropbox, Documents, etc.)
> being forced to use a media player for system management tasks etc
La
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> Why the F**** o you even want filesystem access? Wouldn't it be nice to not have to deal with all of that BS?
My organization has a couple VIPs who want to use iOS as primary computing devices, which required an almost complete change in the way some data is handled, all for want of the ability to store some data they'd be able to download with a web browser on any other platform.
I also think it's nice to be able to segregate personal and business data instead of lumping
everything together. In addition
Re: I wonder (Score:2)
You can drop arbitrary content onto iOS without using iTunes. You can copy files to DropBox, Google Drive, iCloud Drive, Box, etc. from your computer and have full access to those files. You can download any file from Safari into one of those services. With iOS 9 you can attach a file from any of the cloud storage providers into an email. You only need an app to view files that are not natively supported by iOS. Yes iCloud Drive is a separate app in iOS 9 that works like DropBox
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Safari isn't downloading the file to the device if it's being put into Dropbox et al, is it? And if that data doesn't belong in the cloud? If the device doesn't immediately have a viewer, the device can't interact with it, however useful it might be to have on local storage.
I think you misunderstand the definition of the word "arbitrary."
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Because it's my FUCKING computing device that I paid my FUCKING hard-earned cash for and I don't buy a computing device just so I can be FUCKING locked out of it.
By your definition, assuming you own them, your Microwave oven is a computer; your DVR is a computer, your set-top box is a computer, your TV is likely a computer, your A/V receiver is likely a computer, your dishwasher is a computer, your washing machine and dryer may be a computer, your car has a computer, your car's stereo is a computer, your personal music player is a computer, your blood pressure monitor is a computer, your blood glucose monitor is a computer, your computer monitor is a computer, et FU
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I tried to take a picture of a document, then convert to PDF and upload to a website on an i device. I need to do this for the CRM system my company uses. They explicitly require PDF format.
Please tell me how to do this without pre-loading the PDF. I want to do this exclusively with just one device / phone / computer.
You're a TROLL, and/or a MORON.
A quick look at the iOS App Store (ya know, the one loaded on EVERY "iDevice") turned up a metric ton (I stopped counting at FIFTY) of Apps, some even FREE, to do EXACTLY that thing.
Point 2: If you're on a metered connection or a bad connection (say, in another country), and you just want to quickly download a file where you don't have a handler, how can I download it NOW (say, it's a limited time offer) without downloading another 50MB+ handler?
You haven't given enough information; but I would suggest one of the MANY ftp clients, or use something like GoodReader, which not only can down/up load from USB, peer-peer WiFI (from within the App!), and from/to FTP/SFTP, WebDAV, HTTP, AFP, SMB, DropBox, SkyDrive, GoogleDrive, SugarSync, POP/IM
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You have to use the app to rate it, which means you need to own an Android device. Which doesn't entirely prevent stuffing, but iOS users aren't likely as a whole to have an Android device sitting around.
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Rounded to the nearest 1 percent? 100 percent.
How come Google approved this app (Score:5, Funny)
but Apple rejected the "Ditch Apple and switch to Android" app in iTunes?
Re:How come Google approved this app (Score:5, Informative)
Google does not reject aps. They may ban them if they are discovered to have maleware, but if you get the developer license then you can post your apps.
So many jokes.... (Score:2)
Google does not reject aps. They may ban them if they are discovered to have maleware...
... But manfully deciding to post none of them.
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Didn't Google ban ad blockers from the Play Store?
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They were deemed malicious to Google's bottom line.
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and now that iOS9 makes it possible to ad ad blockers to safari, they are rising to the top of the app store sales in days.
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Speaking as someone who has apps rejected, Google does indeed reject apps. In fact, if you get 3 policy strikes you lose you developer account and they close any associate Google accounts (GMail, AdMob, AdSense) and you are dead to the world.
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Google does not reject aps. They may ban them if they are discovered to have maleware, but if you get the developer license then you can post your apps.
Not strictly true,
They reject applications that are illegal or harmful. But Google do not reject applications out of whimsy, blind ideology or because they're afraid they'll be better than the stock apps.
Beyond this being rejected from Google Play isn't the end for an application. This is a bit of a double edged sword, but it's still the reason I like Android and the way Android does things, the benefits outweigh the flaws and it gives me, the owner of the device, the power to choose how I want to use
Maleware? (Score:2)
What is that?
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Check section 3.1 of the Apple app store review guidelines [apple.com]:
Apps or metadata that mentions the name of any other mobile platform will be rejected
So maybe you could publish an app that transfers your data from iOS to Android, you just can't use the word "Android".
What's the reason why Apple would simply ban apps that mention Android in the title? What's the point? Anyone have a good answer for that?
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I don't work for Apple but my guess is that it would be attractive for a scammy app to give itself a name like "Android mail" or something that could fool unsophisticated users into downloading it, just because their friend has mail on their android phone. So it is much more likely that a label like "android" will be abused so it is easier to just make developers of legitimate apps use a different name.
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Seriously? You seriously think that's the reason why Apple flat-out rejects apps with names that include Android? So Apple's way to help get rid of "scammy" apps is to restrict the naming conventions? Not by actually curating the apps and determining whether or not they are "scammy", but by restricting the words that people can use in the app names. That's the explanation you're going with. Why did they single out only other mobile platforms as banned names?
I don't work for Apple
With that explanation, you could have fooled
How does it help you move? (Score:2)
It would be nice if there were more of a specific description of what this app does. How does it help you move to iOS? I'm assuming it doesn't (couldn't) overwrite the existing operating system on your android device with iOS, so what does it do? Advertise?
Encrypts your media, adds DRM, and watermarks mp3s (Score:5, Funny)
I figure it prepares your data for use on an iOS device - encrypting videos you've shot and adding DRM, watermarks your mp3 with your email address/Apple ID, and converts any patent-free codecs like Ogg Theora to mov with an Apple-patented codec.
we know iOS does these things. Not secret (Score:2)
> Android is DRM free, then iOS needs to be DRM free.
We know iOS is not at all DRM free. No amount of logic about why they shouldn't use DRM will matters. It's no secret that Apple media is restricted.
> If Android handles pictures without watermarks, then iOS needs to avoid watermarks.
Again, iOS does in fact watermark your files. They may "need" to change that, but they haven't.
iOS markets to a different niche than Android, so they don't need to be "better" in terms of freedom, etc. For thei
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What is really messed up is that I tried emailing my sister a link an mp3 on the web so she could download it to her iPhone.
It is impossible. You have to download it to a pc/mac using itunes, and then sync it.
Android... Save As..
iPhone... no luck
let me Google that for you (Score:2)
http://www.cnet.com/uk/news/it... [cnet.com]
ps -that's the joke (Score:2)
> If Apple is up to something sinister, they would do it at OS level, not app level.
That's the joke. That's why my post is mod 5 funny. The OS DOES do that. So "preparing your files for iOS" would mean watermarking them, adding DRM, and using patented codecs - BECAUSE those are the types of files iOS uses.
Re:How does it help you move? (Score:5, Informative)
The app creates a secure wireless connection directly between your new iPhone and your old Android phone. It then moves over your contacts, pictures, and videos. Any app that's on the Android phone that's free in the App Store will get downloaded to the iPhone. Any app that requires a payment will be put in your Wish List in iTunes.
Re:How does it help you move? (Score:5, Funny)
It would be nice if there were more of a specific description of what this app does. How does it help you move to iOS?
I can't tell you exactly what it does, but you might find my experience useful. After vaguely thinking that it might be interesting to get an iPhone for a change, I installed the app yesterday and ran it in the normal way. At first, nothing seemed to be happening, but then a faint rotating spiral appeared on the screen. As the beautifully designed pattern became gradually more intense, the phone began to play a strange pulsing harmony and the flash LED blinked softly in time to the music. At that point I began to feel strangely tired, and the next thing I knew it was half an hour later. I have no memory of what happened in that missing 30 minutes, but I see that a $949 transaction has been made on my credit card and a 128GB iPhone 6s Plus seems to be on pre-order from my brand new account at the Apple Store. I hope it comes quickly and my data has been transferred, as all my Android phone will now do is display random quotes in Helvetica like "Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower" and "Just avoid holding it in that way".
Play store review fail: reviews by non-owners (Score:3, Interesting)
Why can non-users review an app? That seems to be a play store fail.
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maybe they downloaded, rated 1-star, and then deleted it.
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maybe they downloaded, rated 1-star, and then deleted it.
a) skip step 1
b) profit!
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Are the reviews useful? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't care what kind of computers other people use. I write MacOS X software for a living. I chose MacOS X as a user and as a developer for a variety of reasons, but I recognize those reasons may no longer be current. I haven't used Windows since Vista - and my use of Vista was doing development on a cross platform Windows/Mac/Linux app I wrote. I have written software for iOS (before it was even called iOS) and some iPhone apps I've written have been commercially quite successful. I thought about writing software for Android, but I haven't because my understanding is that Android users don't (in general) spend money on apps. I don't like "freemium" apps. I prefer to charge up front or else have it free. These days, I'm really more interested in MacOS X software and Linux software.
That said, I don't care what phone you like. I am very glad there are multiple viable phone platforms. I think iOS is cool. I don't like having to ship software through the App Store. That said, I've certainly sold more through the App Store than I ever sold through other channels like Kagi.
Anyway, I'm disappointed that the conversation here isn't focused on whether the reviews are useful. That's what I would care about.
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The reviews aren't useful. The app was released today, the 5 star reviews are ad agencies and the 1 star reviews are people trolling Apple, likely Slashdot and Reddit users.
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At the price I pay for iPhone apps, I can buy a lot of duds and still wind up with apps I really like at a low price. The permissions system makes a lot more sense on iOS, so I don't feel like I have to be cautious.
FWIW, Jobs traded some Apple stock for the rights to the PARC GUI components, and went ahead and made a far better UI with the components. I've seen shots of the PARC interface and it's far inferior to the original MacOS GUI. So, Jobs didn't rip off anything from PARC, and didn't rip off th
Sadly... (Score:3)
Sadly, after reading the article - this appears to be an indication of the level of "iOS Hate[rs]" in the Andriod community, rather than a cogent assessment of the application's quality or ease of use.
I'm almost certain most of the 1-star reviews come from people who recently made the jump in the other direction, from iOS -> Android.
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I'm almost certain most of the 1-star reviews come from people who recently made the jump in the other direction, from iOS -> Android.
I wouldn't assume rabid fanbois for either platform are recent converts.
I am going to put up a poster in a nearby church! (Score:2)
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I don't know. Back when I was in Sunday School at a Congregationist church, they spent a year showing us all sorts of different Christian denominations.
How many of those reviewers actually tried the app (Score:2)
I mean, if the point of it is to move your content from an android phone to an ios phone, then that would require that you actually *have* an ios phone to move the content to.... and most of the reviews that I saw looked like they were from people that wouldn't touch an iphone with the metaphorical 10 foot pole, so I suspect they didn't actually try the app out, but are simply utilizing the review process to diss Apple.
Not that I'm suggesting that Apple isn't necessarily deserving of dissing, but if that
Heads Up Apple! (Score:2)
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pretty moot
You're thinking of 4chan.
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Not in the least. In fact, it gives me a bit of nostalgia for the old days, when you got to have every exact argument at least twice a week.
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In the old days, we got to have the exact same argument at least twice a day.
Why would Apple or switchers care about review? (Score:2)
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Do you really think Apple or Android users looking to switch to iOS care about the reviews or ratings?
Yes. If I thought it would move all my photos, contacts, videos, notes, whatever else...
I'd probably consider a 5-star app, on the presumption that it's easy to use, efficient, and does what I'd expect it to do well.
I wouldn't bother with a 1-star app, on the presumption that it would be a complete waste of time.
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Do you really think Apple or Android users looking to switch to iOS care about the reviews or ratings?
Yes. If I thought it would move all my photos, contacts, videos, notes, whatever else... I'd probably consider a 5-star app, on the presumption that it's easy to use, efficient, and does what I'd expect it to do well. I wouldn't bother with a 1-star app, on the presumption that it would be a complete waste of time.
I expect most Android users looking to switch to iOS would not make any such presumption regarding a 1-star review. This is an extremely "politically incorrect" app for an Android app store and obviously sets off the zealotry of platform fanboys. Reviews are surely going to be skewed as a result. Would be switchers would likely take that into consideration. The fact that it is an official Apple app and is important to Apple's Android to iOS switching efforts would probably far outweigh a bunch of likely bog
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Yeah, you would ignore that the insincere 1 star reviews are from people who transparently want to bash apple & not people who wanted to migrate their contacts, pictures etc off android & to an iPhone. Better off keeping to Android than being accused of apostasy eh?
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I really want to see Google try to publish Move to Android in the Apple store
You assume that Google could write such an app. Sandboxing would probably prevent direct access to the relevant data by a 3rd party app.
My understanding is that the tools for such migrations actually work off of phone backup files on the computer.
Re:Haters gonna hate. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not sure why Apple put a rating system into their own site's products. Especially when it ends up like this [apple.com].
Pages of people with appleIDs, and pages of their handwritten, one-star reviews.
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This just in: Android and Samsung are not the same thing.
You can find your unlocked flagship Android phone here for less than $350:
https://oneplus.net [oneplus.net]
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Emacs totally sucks, Vi is awesome! Only losers use Emacs.
It is an argument as old as computers, likely Ugg argued with Ack about what size rock to use to crack a herbivore's skull.
Absurd nonsense. (Score:2)
Lots of people use Apple devices for work.
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I don't have to worry about vendor installed apps and intrusive branding, I just get a device that works and thats that.
Like a Nexus device?
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Keynote is $10 (Score:2)
can you do work on [an iOS device]? Can you edit a Powerpoint presentation and forward it on to your boss's laptop for him to use at the next sales meeting?
Keynote is $10 on the App Store. Is that close enough?
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PowerPoint does a fine job of editing PowerPoint. MS supports iOS with surprisingly good versions of PowerPoint, Word, Excel, OneDrive, Outlook, etc.
Assuming that "doing work" involves writing and sharing MS Office documents, then iOS is great at "doing work".
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Who cares of the device works or not, can you do work on it? Can you edit a Powerpoint presentation and forward it on to your boss's laptop for him to use at the next sales meeting?
Yes, you _can_ edit a Powerpoint presentation on your iPhone/iPad. All of the Microsoft Office apps are available for iOS for free:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/de... [apple.com]
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To be fair, you also weren't using any special capabilities of your fruit to do that, either. It was a dumb terminal from the moment the VPN connection was negotiated. I can exactly the same tasks you just described on anything with a reasonably high resolution screen and a functional 3G or 802.11 connection, even a Palm or WinCE device.
Where does the "just works" part come in?