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Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

technicallychallenged.substack.com

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Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#291

Post by bamfly »

manmal wrote: post #242
stakhanov wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think it ended up being a little dramatic, but I agree that the iPad being as shackled as its been has been a net negative for computing. ...well the war on general purpose computing is on, so, unfortunately, the iOS/Android model is "the future". It won't be long until macOS and Windows are just as shackled. Things are definitely moving in that direction right now.

The moment macOS is shackled any more, I'll move to Linux. And I suspect I'm not alone in this, and that Apple knows.

Mainly DOS/Windows user from ~1992-2000. Mainly Linux 2000-2011. Mac since.

> The moment macOS is shackled any more

I hadn't really noticed it being "shackled" at all. What do you mean?

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#292

Post by ghaff »

atourgates wrote: post #283
basisword wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Boggles the mind why people still fall for the iPad Pro as a serious work machine beyond writing meme. So it’s not good as a work machine…apart from most jobs. Most jobs are email and documents. If you’re on the move a lot then it’s a good device for those jobs. Jobs which require a lot of computing power, large screens, input devices other than a keyboard and touch screen, are definitely the minority.

I work in a “mostly email and documents” job, and have an iPad Pro with the Magic Keyboard case. Every 6 months or so I try to use my iPad as a MacBook replacement for work for a day. It just, doesn’t work. Every time I’ve come up against a limitation. The iOS version of a tool is missing some critical functionality. Moving things between apps is a hassle. Multi-tasking is a hassle. Etc. Etc. I’ll probably keep occas…

Yeah, I'm basically email/documents/web as well (when not at home) and I've occasionally given the iPad Pro with pencil and external keyboard a shot for working on a short trip. I admit I probably haven't given myself enough time with the various multitasking features to use them reflexively but I've just never been able to really make it work for me. I can in a pinch on a short trip where I'm mostly just doing some browsing and maybe taking some notes but I'm more inclined to just bring a laptop and ditch the iPad entirely. In fact, I don't really use my iPad at home much and I'm not sure I'll replace my current one which is out of or going out of support.

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#293

Post by jdechko »

jug wrote: post #281
iamsanteri wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I always thought it’s only good for architects with their drawings or for businesses offering product configurators and such to their customers in their physical spaces or museums, etc. But look at that, instead of carrying one more paper notebook in my bag I now have this extra thing in addition to my laptop and it’s pretty good!

This is a good point. I criticized it in another post here in typical Hacker News fashion but just to add some positivity, iPad Pro is great for precisely architects and engineers bringing CAD drawings etc because the guys pack a tablet with a large screen with them to the actual site and can intuitively work with and demo the project with their hands alone. I know this works because we have people at work doing prec…

Or marking up PDF plans and reviewing the field plan review comments with the pencil in the field. It’s better than trying to manage 60+ tabloid-size pages and a 30 page document in the field.

It’s a tool that’s really good for some things but not for others. Unfortunately, it’s the software, and not the hardware, that’s holding it back.

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#295

Post by danielbln »

melvyn2 wrote: post #290
scarface_74 wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you want a 14 hour battery life, doesn’t sound like a 747 when you open a few Chrome tabs. Not to mention the fact that a Mac laptop won’t fry your nuts when you put it on your lap.

As surprising as you may find it, Apple doesn't have a monopoly on good hardware. The stereotype of any non-macbook being a toaster is practically a strawman at this point (while people are so quick to forget the atrocity of the i9 macbook).

The M1/M2 chips are just that good. My old 2015 Macbook turned into a toaster/jet engine if I only looked at it funny, macbooks between 2015 and 2020 were garbage, crappy keyboards, crappy USB ports and the thermal energy monsters that are Intel chipsets. It only really changed with the 2020 Apple silicon laptops, and they are just that good. A blazingly fast workhorse with outrageous battery runtime that rarely ever gets hot, and I think I heard the fan maybe once? since I bought it 3 years ago.

I'm sure there are great laptops out there, but at least in my company the other Dell or Lenovo (including Thinkpad) machines just don't stack up to that.

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#296

Post by melvyn2 »

klausa wrote: post #190
bunga-bunga wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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”

How do you see this being viable without completely compromising the security of people who, for whatever reason, still use those devices?

The pixel, for example, already has a secure yet user-unlockable bootloader. So do modern x86_64 PC's. Statements like these, claiming that only apple can properly secure a device (and hence that users deserve to be locked out), simply show astounding ignorance.

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#297

Post by amerkhalid »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #204

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…

> Boggles the mind why people still fall for the iPad Pro as a serious work machine beyond writing meme.

The form factor is incredible.

I did this a few years ago, used iPad+vps for personal work. As a backend developer mostly, it was not hard.

Then had to switch back as I got into gamedev but miss the form factor of iPad so much. For some reason, it seemed to inspire me at odd hours and places to code.

Now I am back in market for a new machine. Debating hard to give up projects that cannot be done easily on iPad. So that I can get iPad and VPS again. It sounds crazy to limit your curiosity but it’s just incredible machine.

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#298

Post by the__alchemist »

justinclift wrote: post #94
behnamoh wrote: post #14

I’ve owned ipads for a long time and their productivity benefits compared to my Mac and iphone has never improved over the years. This year I’m selling my last ipad and won’t buy again until Apple throws a “real” OS at the thing. one of the worst things about ios is that files get copied for each app. Say I download a PDF in the Documents app and want to annotate it. As soon as I open it with NoteX, a copy of the PDF…

For me, after doing a bunch of evaluation I went with buying an old (and very cheap) 2nd hard Surface Pro 3 on Ebay to see if that could possibly do the job. ... and yep, it does even with just Windows on it. Technically Linux can be loaded onto these things, and apparently works pretty well. But, I never got around to trying that out. About a year later I dropped the damn thing and completely shattered the screen. S…

My experience with Linux on on a SP wasn't great. The basic PC functionality is fine, but getting the pen and touch working required a custom kernel and a fair amount of effort. The input latency on the pen, combined with no good writing apps on Linux killed it for me.

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#299

Post by SyrupThinker »

makeitdouble wrote: post #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.…

Not making any statement regarding the mentioned workflow issues (I mostly agree with them), I really like iSH [1] for this sort thing.

It’s a “good enough” solution for the “I just quickly need to do something in a terminal” problems.

And because it’s an x86 Alpine Linux it can even run simple binaries if needed.

But for me it still couldn’t replace a dedicated laptop for proper tasks.

[1]: https://github.com/ish-app/ish

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#300

Post by peteradio »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #204

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…

You don't have to sit there and wait! You can go grab a coffee or have a smoke!
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