I love the hardware of the iPad pro, however iOS is holding it back. Particularly sharing between apps is extremely frustrating. If users had the 'option' for a proper file system granting access to scope storage, this would go a long way to making workflows possible.
Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake
371–380 of 533 posts
Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake
#372Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s called iPad PRO, if you want media consumption device iPad will do just fine.
12.9" pro's the best comic book reading device on the market, by a mile, AFAIK. Comfortable to hold, can display two-page spreads at very nearly full life-size. It's great for PDFs and sheet music for similar reasons. Gotta admit, though, if they made a 12.9" non-pro at least $200 cheaper than the 12.9" Pro, I'd have that instead. I don't need the horsepower.
If it is only "very nearly", wouldn't something larger like an s8 ultra be better? Also "by a mile" is a stretch. It might be better but all $1000+ tablets are reasonably close enough to be happy with any of them.
Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake
#373Earlier quoted context omitted.
> That turned out to be completely untrue for my use cases, but it would've taken a lot more than 5 minutes to figure that out. Couldn’t you figure that out when you noticed that it doesn’t have any IDE you’ve ever heard of, and no compiler or runtime for anything? I know there are iPad for coding advocates out there, but it really doesn’t even take 5 minutes to figure out that the developer experience is completely…
My use case didn't require an IDE. My main intent was to remote into my batteryless laptop, so in principle the iPad didn't need much functionality of its own. That said, I don't know what you mean by "the lack of any developer tools". There are absolutely code editors, IDEs, SSH clients, and even runtimes for iPadOS. There are also lots of web-based IDEs and editors now, even self-hostable ones like code-server. Obv…
There are no IDEs that run on iPadOS, the best you can get is either a text editor with basic high lighting, or a “cloud” IDE. There’s also no way to install a runtime or compiler on iPadOS. Unless you’re already using some cloud based solution (in which case you should already be familiar with their pitfalls), it should be immediately apparent to most developers that their workflows aren’t going to run on an iPad. It doesn’t have the most basic tools that you would need, not even the ability to run the code that you write. People do use it, but the level of jankiness they’re accepting is immediately apparent, even if you’re only consulting the most vocal advocates. I also considered this when I saw how cool the iPad Pro looked, but it barely took more than a couple of minutes to figure out that it wasn’t worth trying.
Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake
#374Boggles 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.
I wouldn't know of course, but if I had to guess it'd say it's because of influencers and trends/fashion.
Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake
#375Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Out of curiosity, what are the "good writing apps" on windows? When I last checked windows seemed to have exactly one note, android like 2 apps and iPad like 3 apps.
OneNote
Concepts is good for some things too.
Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake
#376Earlier quoted context omitted.
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).
Show me the laptop that is as good or better than the new 15” MacBook Air at the same price. Needs the same or better specs, build quality, and local in-person support (i.e. a worldwide dense network of retail stores). Good luck!
Dell XPS? Thinkpad T15?
If you pay for the Nvidia card you could even outperform the M2 Ultra for kicks and giggles.
Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake
#377I’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…
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…
Not that I disagree with your use-case at all, it seems perfectly valid but…
I’ve owned Macs since 2006 and have never had to worry about driver issues once.
Come to think of it, I don’t really worry about the CPU either since M1.
iPads are not for me but I’m happy that they’re for someone else.
Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake
#378Well, yeah -- anything involving text on iOS is far from optimal, so buying an iPad Pro for: email, blogging, creative writing, memo-writing for work, working in spreadsheets, document creation in general; is a mistake.
I read a commentary years back about Google's social efforts. The author blamed Google's failings on the author's assumption that no one at Google actually used their social products. For comparison, it's obvious that Google uses gmail throughout the company, and therefore has practical insight and inherent motivation to make it usable.
I've been saying for many years: I am 100% convinced there is no one at Apple who lives and works on an iPad (small caveat: without having it permanently tethered to a keyboard).
1. Text selection is awful: it takes an eon to select a word in text on iOS compared with double-clicking a word on Mac.
2. God help you if the insertion point is just a character or two away from where you need it: you either have to do the long-press on the keyboard, then carefully drag to correct it, or tap somewhere else completely and then tap where you want it.
3. If iOS thinks it knows where you want the insertion point, it thinks it knows better than you where the insertion point should go. See (2).
4. Selecting large amounts of text is a huge pain.
5. The touch keyboard just isn't viable for use at scale.
I could go on, but it's just a rant and no one at Apple is reading this, so I'll stop there. Apple, if you do happen to read this and want to fix this, hire me!
Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake
#379Earlier quoted context omitted.
12.9" pro's the best comic book reading device on the market, by a mile, AFAIK. Comfortable to hold, can display two-page spreads at very nearly full life-size. It's great for PDFs and sheet music for similar reasons. Gotta admit, though, if they made a 12.9" non-pro at least $200 cheaper than the 12.9" Pro, I'd have that instead. I don't need the horsepower.
If it is only "very nearly", wouldn't something larger like an s8 ultra be better? Also "by a mile" is a stretch. It might be better but all $1000+ tablets are reasonably close enough to be happy with any of them.
I've used a lot of Android tablets, low end to high, and developed software for them. They're awful. Crashy, glitchy, bad battery life. I don't think we'll see a true iPad competitor until/unless a new OS enters the market—Android's had a long time to get its shit together, and evidently just can't. Wish someone would give it a shot, because I'd love to see that market better-served.
Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake
#380Disclaimer 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.…
I do web development on an iPad Pro, using Blink.sh and a remote server. Not a bad experience, really. Works better with an external monitor hooked up for live-reloading, and not having a real, proper web inspector is a drawback, but it works.
I totally agree it can work, I also had a somewhat working setup.
At some point I just asked myself if avoiding Windows was worth all the tradeoffs. Windows is still completely clunky and ugly, to be honest I feel I exchanged polish and elegance for actual power.
Staying so long on the iPad, it felt really weird when I needed to test on firefox...and I can just run firefox. No need to VNC other some other desktop or use Browserstack style services, "it just works" to borrow the expression.