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Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

technicallychallenged.substack.com

221–230 of 533 posts

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#221

Boggles the mind why people still fall for the iPad Pro as a serious work machine beyond writing meme. The fact that Final Cut launched on it recently and while its exporting you have to sit there leaving the app open you can't go do something else is the punchline of the decade for the lie that this is a serious machine. This is before we get into the comical evolution from "You just need the touchscreen" to "Actual…

The form factor isn’t the problem. The software is. If they’d let it runMacOS it would be great.

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#222

> But if you need to run Xcode, VSCode, WebStorm, or Intellij than as far as I can tell the iPad is a no go. > It's expensive. After buying a powerful pro model, a decent keyboard, and a pencil the price ended up being MORE than a laptop I could have used for even more coding activities. 5m of research could have shown this... i think this product is only good for artists who needs a specific ipad app or someone who…

But it's still a bad fit for artists too, as they're not gonna need the hardware of the pro. It's way too overpowered/expensive for what iOS permits you to do.

The normal iPad or iPad Air for media consumption are already perfect, the Pro version remains as a bad market fit

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is probably because those developers haven't added support for opening files in place, which has been available since iOS 9. There are a few other things (e.g. the way you call open/save dialogs) that need to be changed if you want to add support as well.

i like how we are talking about an OS that initially released in 2007, and only got support for "opening files in place" in 2015. What a time to be alive, we can open files in place and all.. gotta give apple credit, while the rest of the world is reduced to lowly CopyOnWrite, they took it one step further, with CopyOnRead.

Given that we're in 2023 this seems like a weird hill to die on.

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If apps are still handling files that way instead of being able to open documents from anywhere in your local files, iCloud Drive, it’s on the developer. Hasn’t been the case for years that this is the way files work, you should be able to save them to your Downloads folder (or elsewhere) and open them in whichever app you want. Give PDF Viewer a look if you want better file handling: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pd…

>If apps are still handling files that way instead of being able to open documents from anywhere in your local files, iCloud Drive, it’s on the developer. Not a problem on a real operating system, everything just works. No need to pray the developer followed this years best practices instead of 3 years ago best practices just to use files in a sane manner. No need to beg a developer to fix it either, because the syst…

I’d love to know what fantasy world you live in where developers don’t routinely fuck up basic functionality of operating systems by implementing custom versions of things like save & print dialogs.

Because let me tell you, it ain’t this one. Windows & Linux routinely run into this & per your rant… shouldn’t.

Yet they do.

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't wait for ipads to mature

In practice, this means being able to run MacOS on them. All the hardware is already there, it's just a matter of time until Apple has the "courage" to enable it.

The hardware may be there, but the input models — touch vs. keyboard & mouse — are so fundamentally different that I think it makes sense to present different user experiences.

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#226
Disclaimer I code for the web, so I wouldn't be affected by the SwiftUI part.

Trying to make the iPad thing work for almost 10 years, I finally gave up and bought a Surface Pro (7 first, and upgraded to 8).

People use to joke about the length iPad user go to execute simple tasks.

Like logging to a remote server to reboot it. You can do it on an iPad, you just need an SSH app, share your keys with it, and you're done. Then you push a bit further to check out some git repo, change it and push it, and have your server update. But you're probably three apps down the line at this point, they can't really share a common working directory in the way you expect it to work as files are managed individually, there is the backgrounding issues etc.

You can make most things work, but through piles of hacks, workflow glue, paying for many more external services or basically moving everything remote, out of the iPad.

At some point I had a RPi stuck to the iPad to locally ssh into it.

Or you spend the same amount of effort and frustration, but on Windows, on a machine that has none of the silly limitations, can run an actual linux subsystem locally, Docker if you want to, a full VSCode available offline and any other real pro tool you need.

Basically, for the same amount of pulling hairs a Surface Pro actually delivers where the iPad always falls short in some way.

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no I've just been using arm64 devices for like 6 years now and the advantages of the m1/m2 are present in any laptop or tablet that is arm64. endless battery, fanless design, excellent performance for the kinds of tasks a developer does. only downside is the m2 is probably faster in cpu/compilation times for certain things because of how fast it is

Are you also "sublinear"? Because that's who was being asked, as far as I see. In any case, the claim that any ARM laptop before the M1 had excellent performance is new to me and I'd be interested in knowing what non-Apple ARM laptops exist that are competitive with M1/M2 Macbooks in battery life, heat generation, performance and utility for developers. I'm in the market for a new laptop.

It's not quite as fast but the Thinkpad X13s Snapdragon? Fanless, lighter than the 13" MBA, battery life seems good from reviews, offers M.2 storage and 5G if you need it. There is also an ARM version of the Surface Pro 9 which offers an iPad Pro like form factor but without the restrictions. Admittedly the current ARM PC offerings aren't as fast but they aren't terrible either.

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

God I hope your wish never comes true. I don't understand why a device can't just be for consumption of media. Why is everyone trying to force this to become a computer with an annoyingly complicated navigation UX and the rest of the ceaveats when using a complete OS. If I ever have to worry about CPU usage or driver issues on my iPad I will be the one leaving. I bought an iPad NOT to work on it. It is my vacation de…

It’s called iPad PRO, if you want media consumption device iPad will do just fine.

Pro in Apple world means more powerful hardware + extra niceties. Not a different ecosystem.

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, just get any laptop really. There's nothing special about a Mac unless you need to do native development for Apple devices, and I'd suggest a Mac Mini for that.

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)

> the undisputed leader of rugged hardware design.

Glass and aluminum are ruggedized materials?

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