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Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

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111–120 of 533 posts

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#111
post #39

I don't see what people expect. The iPad is a portable touch-first device with a small screen and a locked-down operating system. The first two are by-design for the tablet form factor, so this will never change. And I don't expect Apple to open up the system, but it does not sound as if this was the main concern in this article. So why not simply get a MacBook Air, which is a completely capable, awesome coding devic…

To have a locked down, consume first, small display device?

I guess the OP wasn't looking for a Linux workstation under their desk and then went for the iPad form factor instead.

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#112

I think I have the first or second gen ipad. For some years now the OS and apps are frozen in time. I have basically some old games and the old safari browser. The old safari is slow and, can you believe it, HN does not fully function! Now, we all know the hardware is premium and this device would probably run linux very smoothly and the touch interface would be a dream. But we can only dream right? WTF? Apple won’t…

ah yes, the e-waste conundrum when you run an OS that is completely user hostile

A first-gen iPad is 13 years old. How many tablets running a 'user-friendly' OS from 13 years ago do you still think are actually out there, being used? The only old tablets I see are running iOS/iPad OS. Probably because they're built on solid metal and glass skeletons.

While I agree things could be better, Apple also does a commendable job of providing updates and support for devices much longer and much more consistently than their competitors. They are after all incentivized to do so thanks to their cut of App Store revenue.

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#113

I love the mini - and I'd say an iPad makes sense for consumption and pen use (handwriting notes)... but the 'Pro' is a waste of an M1/M2. I would kill for a rebooted 12" Macbook with that same terrible keyboard if it at least had an M1 in it.

omg that 12" macbook would absolutely SING with an m1

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#115

I think I have the first or second gen ipad. For some years now the OS and apps are frozen in time. I have basically some old games and the old safari browser. The old safari is slow and, can you believe it, HN does not fully function! Now, we all know the hardware is premium and this device would probably run linux very smoothly and the touch interface would be a dream. But we can only dream right? WTF? Apple won’t…

> hardware is premium and this device would probably run linux very smoothly and the touch interface would be a dream

No, no it wouldnt. Because between Wayland infighting and DE infighting and what not and UX quirks and more blah blah blah it would run like molasses

Just see how well a touchpad works on linux.

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#116

In my experience, iPad + keyboard works okay for coding if you SSH into a remote machine [1] and use a terminal-based text editor like emacs or vim. Alternatively, you can use a Git client [2] to code locally but that prevents you from using your preferred text editor or the command line. In theory, Visual Studio Code for the Web [3] could work too though I haven’t tried that approach personally. I first experimented…

Actually, I can use vim on a-Shell (or Textastic, or Blink’s VS Code copy) to edit Working Copy repositories. There is a lot more flexibility than most people realize.

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#117
post #72

While it's not the best experience I've been using iPad for coding for over 2 years on my personal projects. My setup uses a machine at home with - https://github.com/coder/code-server - terminus - for playing with terminal work - tailscale - for VPN and accessing local servers on home server I must admit not having a ESC key in ipad keyboard is a pain as I'm a heavy vim user but after a few weeks you kind of get use…

You can remap caps lock to esc in settings which is pretty nice.

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#118
post #103
post #39

I don't see what people expect. The iPad is a portable touch-first device with a small screen and a locked-down operating system. The first two are by-design for the tablet form factor, so this will never change. And I don't expect Apple to open up the system, but it does not sound as if this was the main concern in this article. So why not simply get a MacBook Air, which is a completely capable, awesome coding devic…

Remember the 'What's a computer Ad' of iPad Pro from 2017? I'm not saying that OP fell for that marketing and is gullible, but Apple marketed the iPad Pro as a replacement for a computer, so it may not be completely unreasonable to expect a reasonably similar experience on an iPad after 6 years and the n number of iPad generations that went by.

> Apple marketed the iPad Pro as a replacement for a computer

Nah, they were using an extremely narrow definition of computer, one where you can buy and consume stuff and do "cool" social media with the device. If that's not your use case you want a different kind of computer.

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#120
post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember the 'What's a computer Ad' of iPad Pro from 2017? I'm not saying that OP fell for that marketing and is gullible, but Apple marketed the iPad Pro as a replacement for a computer, so it may not be completely unreasonable to expect a reasonably similar experience on an iPad after 6 years and the n number of iPad generations that went by.

> Apple marketed the iPad Pro as a replacement for a computer Nah, they were using an extremely narrow definition of computer, one where you can buy and consume stuff and do "cool" social media with the device. If that's not your use case you want a different kind of computer.

you can't even do social media on an ipad, it runs it in that small iphone emulator mode
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