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Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

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Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 consi…

It’s true, but also it would cost little to unlock the device after they add it to the Vintage category.

I’m sure that the EU will eventually come up with legislation that forces some larger manufactures to open artificial gates automatically after they declare the products “obsolete”

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#152

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…

Tim nice but dim, now thats a quote I havent heard in a while...

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#153
post #50

This is going to become an interesting topic to watch as people go out and buy Vision Pro headsets on the basis that it's fine being $3500 because "it replaces my laptop". It was very disappointing that it's actually iOS based rather than MacOS. At least, if you throw a Macbook Air in your bag too in theory you will be able to bring it up as a full desktop, but it's super unclear how the integration will look.

Yeah, the most annoying thing about VR, the developers like Meta and Apple literally block you from being productive on these devices. They want VR to be the future but for whatever reason they paternalistically prevent people from actually using them for real work except through frustrating workarounds.

I still lament the discontinuing of samsung's gear VR. I understand it still exists kinda as the oculus Go, but there was something called PhoneCast which would let you open any of the apps from your phone side by side with arbitrarily large windows. [1]

many times I've had the pleasure of running linux on my VR glasses and using a browser to debug webapps I can write entirely offline.

meta and apple are so close but the user experience for normal people matters to them significantly more than developers.

[1] https://venturebeat.com/games/phonecast-lets-you-play-2d-and...

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#154
post #143

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…

> This also mostly applies to android devices as well - which is another shit show. Totally not true, I am at my second "out of support" device on which I install LineageOS and enjoy current Android. Just unlock the bootloader. If you are tired of Apple selling basically hardware-as-a-service with strong planned obsolescence, don't buy their products, problem solved.

Android? Nah. I want my vanilla flavoured linux. Without biscuits.

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#155
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MacBookPros have been pretty much for the past decade+ the undisputed leader of rugged hardware design. Nobody else to my knowledge sells machined unibody laptops at a competitive price point. (Only half jokingly posting this hoping somebody can't help to attempt to prove me wrong)

Why do you want a unibody? Isn't it better to open it up and and stick a multi TB ssd and 64GB RAM in, lioe I did with my EliteBook 840?

Old unibody MacBooks could do that. The lack of choice now is due to a non-standard architecture, which the Mac Pro seems to confirm (not “unibody”, but still the RAM is not extensible)

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#156
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hosted vscode, github codespaces etc - coding on ipad is very much possible.

"you can visit a website" okay my smart toaster is an excellent dev machine as well I'm looking for something like swift playgrounds++ so baby xcode, not a remote window

"Smart toaster" was an accidental feature of some Apple products.

I used to have a MBP laptop that basically doubled as a "smart" toaster, giving me something close to a sun burn if I used it on my lap. Even lap pads would warm to uncomfortable levels after a short usage time, until I found one with aerogel insulation.

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 consi…

The Google Nexus 7 is from 2012, so 11 years ago, and is still perfectly usable with a battery upgrade (possible because it's not glued/soldered) and a custom ROM (possible because the bootloader is open).

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say this but there's a lot of unreasonable people around. There's always someone who has cobbled together a workflow on an ipad for whatever they're doing relying on like 5 different commercial applications and a bunch of sacrifices just to approximate what they'd get if they just used a macbook/windows/linux instead. And when you try to point this out to them they get defensive and basically pull the "everyone i…

> 5 different commercial applications The horror! Somebody paid money for something!? If it works, and it costs a reasonable amount of money, it's nice to support the developer. Not all of us have to be cheapskates.

the point is that the workflow was previously achieved with a single application whose design/feature set, pricing, and support policy are rarely changed or changed 5 times less often.

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#159
We use iPads for work. Reading music mostly, but also for a limited amount of office tasks. I have started carrying a razer huntsman mini (the silent red kind) because I can't stand typing on the touch keyboard. I also couldn't find any possibility to remap the keyboard to svdvorak so I remapped the huntsman in hardware.

With a proper keyboard it is actually almost half-decent. My colleagues mocked me until they saw I could type more than 40wpm.

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#160
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"you can visit a website" okay my smart toaster is an excellent dev machine as well I'm looking for something like swift playgrounds++ so baby xcode, not a remote window

You either trolling or have no idea what you're talking about. Hosted vscode is just vscode. You can use it to run remote terminal, just as ssh and run commands there or launch/debug code, set breakpoints etc from ui etc. At Google most of new hires are working on cloud machines now by default, with either vscode/remote or internal web-based editor. Your toaster doesn't have amount of CPUs/RAM/disk space that you can…

> At Google most of new hires are working on cloud machines now by default, with either vscode/remote or internal web-based editor.

They are doing this because Google has a gigantic monorepo, not because it’s some platonic ideal way to code.

Local development is still the gold standard, if you can do it. One obvious benefit: it works even if you’re offline or have a bad connection.

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