The chicken or the egg?
I've been on a bit of a tablet collecting spree in the past few months, culminating in an iPad Pro that checks all the boxes that I found on Facebook marketplace yesterday. As I've been trying to set it up, I've been endlessly frustrated by things that don't work, or at least don't work the way I think they should, or would, or in any way that's easy to figure out without a google search. It's not intuitive for me.
Example 1: You can add one email account in the mail app when you first fire it up. After that, there is no add button or instruction to add another. My husband, the apple user, couldn't even remember how, other than it was some system wide setting and we had to look it up.
Example 2: I even downloaded the app that every musician uses and loves on iPad - Forscore. It's pretty. The process of connecting OneDrive so I can download my music is a convoluted mess of having to go through the Files app. MobileSheets connects directly. Luckily, it's available for for iPadOS now, so I ponied up for yet another MobileSheets lisence (very worth it) to just use the app I'm used to and downloaded my full library backup faster than I could figure out how to connect OneDrive to Forscore.
Example 3: The iPad can't handle my widescreen monitor. My various Samsung tablets have no problem. There seem to be no settings or options to configure how the iPad is trying to use the external display, just extend or mirror and if extend doesn't work, to bad, so sad. Maybe I'll google the situation, maybe not.
So, is iPadOS unintuituve, inflexible, locked in garbage? Is Android so superior? Or do I prefer Android because I know it? Do I know Android better because I prefer it, so I use it, so I know it better, so I'm comfortable with it, so I prefer it, so I use it, so I know it better, so I prefer to use it....which came first?
I understand @dstrauss waffling back and forth trying to make one or the other system work while being endlessly frustrated by the way things work whichever way you end up trying to go.
Have the workflows gotten farther apart, or have I just gotten more set in the Android way of doing things? Will my husband steal the new iPad so he can have the bigger second screen with his mac setup (he's already tried)? Or will having all the other boxes ticked (big screen, M2, 512, cellular, with the new availability of familiar apps) make it worth the setup hassle and navigation learning curve?
I think there's a bit of both with the Android being better and being used to Android. I've had my iPad Pro since 2020, so have had plenty of time to get used to it.
There are still lots of things that have more friction than Android does. File management and sharing is a big one. I also use OneDrive, though plan on this being my last year with it. We've been paying for an Office subscription that comes with 1TB storage so my wife can have all the access for her homeschooling, but she's trying to switch to Google apps instead. Hopefully. If that happens, I'll switch to paying for iCloud that has way less friction. (Though I'm not sure now it will work with my Android phone)
Anyway, point is, some of it is familiarity, but iPadOS is also difficult for various things, and harder if you don't do things the Apple Way. File sharing is easy, for instance, with AirDrop. But outside of that, overly complicated.
To get around some of the friction, I just use third party apps that play a little nicer where I can. I use a third party mail app for instance. I never even set up the iPad mail client. But finding one that works for you can be a chore.
For me though, the reason I use iPad over Android is the few apps that are more "Pro" level. There is no Affinity on Android. No Fresco. And some of the apps that are on both platforms are more robust on iPadOS than on Android. So if I'm just using a single app, in general my iPad Pro does better. Multi tasking, even with iPadOS 26, I prefer Android or my Mac.