Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

technicallychallenged.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

431–440 of 533 posts

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#431

Post by wkat4242 »

sofixa wrote: post #384
wkat4242 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm I would beg to differ. I have some N7s and they are too slow to even run as a panel for home assistant. Apps have really got much heavier since then. Of course they are running only a mid-range SoC from 2012 so that makes sense.

From what I've read, it's mostly a battery issue (the battery is so dead the CPU gets heavily throttled).

I don't think so, the battery on one still works fine, and on the other I have replaced the internal battery with a DC-DC converter, so according to the tablet there is a "battery" which works fine and never runs dead :)

I always do this when I use tablets as wall panels, because eventually the battery will bloat and possibly catches fire. This way I can remove the battery altogether. None of the tablets and phones I have tested are capable of even starting up on USB power alone: With a dead battery or removed battery they simply won't even power on.

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#432

Post by vonseel »

loehnsberg wrote: post #323
jug wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, iPadOS has deep, lingering deficiencies as an OS for professional use. But their ads and keynotes are convincing, so I can't blame people falling for it! There's this weird juxtaposition of a terrible productivity machine combined with some mature, amazing and easy to use software in the demos, and Apple makes it look like iPads can be deeply embedded in your workflow and people have fun and laugh as that tiny d…

I use an iPad Pro mostly for my lectures and for reading and annotating PDFs. After the latest upgrade of iPadOS, I also explored it for more serious work connecting it to a mouse and keyboard. If you're happy with working inside a browser and use it as a terminal, it works just fine, but as soon as you need to manage files or quickly want to edit a document on the device, it becomes pretty painful. I really don't un…

I bought my iPad 5th gen years ago pretty much for reading PDFs. Sadly, it's barely even usable for that, even after a fresh device reset it's laggy and so slow. I'm not sure if it was always that way; I don't think so. I've stopped upgrading iOS but I think I'm already at 15, if there's a way to go wayyy back that's probably what I want to do, but it's sad that even an iPad can be bogged down so much as to barely run PDF readers. And I always wished mine supported pencil / annotations, but I think I'm one generation behind.

I imagine most employees who get by in cloud docs (Google/Microsoft/etc.) and don't really open apps other than browsers can learn to be comfortable with an iPad, but many people don't want to. I have friends who refuse to even learn to use a trackpad on Macbook because they are so set in their ways.

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#433

Post by arvinsim »

jug wrote: post #268
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…

Yes, iPadOS has deep, lingering deficiencies as an OS for professional use. But their ads and keynotes are convincing, so I can't blame people falling for it! There's this weird juxtaposition of a terrible productivity machine combined with some mature, amazing and easy to use software in the demos, and Apple makes it look like iPads can be deeply embedded in your workflow and people have fun and laugh as that tiny d…

IMO, I think they figured out what they want.

They don't want iPads to cannibalize their Macs. They then kneecap iPads accordingly.

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#434

Post by wiseowise »

diffeomorphism wrote: post #372
bamfly wrote: post #369

Earlier 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.

16:10 is an abomination.

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#435

Post by whalesalad »

fortunately these days an m2 air is more or less the exact thing most people want and need when it comes to an ultra portable dev machine. it's pretty much an ipad pro with a fixed keyboard and an unrestricted OS.

I have owned a lot of computers in my life and if I were to rank them all and pick _one_ which I would have absolutely zero hesitation purchasing again it would be my m2 air. great keyboard, out of this world battery life, and rock solid performance so far.

I dev remotely with vscode and have a couple of 2u servers in my basement so they do most of the heavy lifting - but the same situation exists w/ ipad dev process as well.

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#436

Post by bamfly »

spogbiper wrote: post #421
bamfly wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

5 years ago I would have mostly agreed with your statements about android tablets, but since then Samsung has created a family of very acceptable tablets imho.

Maybe I'll try one from their newer line at some point. I haven't had a big pile of Android test devices around me on the daily in about 4 years (the consistent "Android's finally good now!" cry with each Android release and major-vendor product launch, followed by that never turning out to be true, for the entire decade I was doing mobile dev before that, is why I'd assumed nothing would have changed by now) so it checks out if they have in-fact finally made a good one (the older Samsung tablets were... not good) I might have missed it.

Last time I was guided by "no really this higher-tier Android thing is finally good, actually" advice was about a year ago, with the Nvidia Shield, though, so I'm... hesitant.

If I see one in a store, I may poke at it, read some reviews, see how their app store's looking these days for categories I care about. Could use a second largish tablet for the kids—or maybe a new one for me, and they can have the big iPad full-time. Having just one decent vendor in the mobile market blows (fucking Apple still won't add multiple profiles/icloud-logins to iPadOS, so annoying) so I'd be thrilled to discover that's changed.

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#437

Post by cobertos »

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.…

I used to use Surface Pros, but I switched to a Dell Latitude 2-in-1 to get an external eGPU (w/ Thunderbolt 3 before Surface Pro added it)

I like it so much more. It's a little thicker, but it's cheaper, it's repairable (I've replaced the battery twice), and it supports Linux better. I love having a Surface-like that runs Linux

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#438

Post by PaulHoule »

I used to pack a desktop replacement laptop in my backpack but now I have a regular iPad and a cheap BT keyboard and mouse.

I leave my big “gaming PC” on and use Tailscale to log in with RDP, I have ADSL at home so it could be faster but with some tactics to manage latency it is not that bad, mostly I use a web app that I wrote on it. (my YOShInOn RSS reader)

I used to do the same with an Amazon Fire Tablet a long time ago with a big cloud PC behind it. I’d go to a hackathon and have such sleek kit that people with their Macbook Pro’s would get jealous.

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#439

Post by amerkhalid »

recursive wrote: post #419
2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, Microsoft Surface got this right. Having a touch screen on a laptop is great. I don’t do any coding on my iPad, but I got a knockoff Magic Keyboard and it’s pretty great. The real thing isn’t worth it, since it puts you into laptop price category, and you’re better off buying a low end laptop.

It seems a lot easier to put a touch screen on a laptop. Mine has one, and it's a totally normal laptop.

I’m not sure if it’s a touchscreen by itself make it such a great device.

I think it’s combination of media consumption focus, responsiveness and super light to hold for reading or writing.

When I bought it, I was going to use it just for reading and drawing. But it was with me all the time so I bought keyboard too and started ssh into my virtual machines for light work. Eventually, I was using it for programming more than drawing or reading.

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#440

Post by GeorgeTirebiter »

alistairSH wrote: post #364
dabluecaboose wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember seeing an editorial about the rumored release of the iSlate (yes, that's what people thought it'd be called) circa 2010. It said that if the iPad was a Macbook, all would be well. But if it was a large iPhone, it would set back tablet/mobile computing a decade. 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.

Except most people don't need a full-feature general purpose computer. "I want to code on a tablet" is a pretty niche market. The M1+ iPad Pros are pretty good digital creation devices. Lots of photographers use them in their workflows now. Doing a quick (but still high quality) edit at an event, so the customer has something to share immediately is a huge value add.

I am used to being able to write code on my 'computer'. That's my standard definition of 'computer' -- or maybe let's call it 'personal computer'. I can't write code on my microwave for my microwave; I can't write code on my TV for my TV; and I can't write code for my iPad on my iPad -- this means all these devices are computer-powered 'devices'. They are NOT 'personal computers'.

At least, this is how I see it. And while I use my iPP all the time, with kbd & pencil, I would like to bang out a chunk of Python once in a while or write some lisp --- there are 'ways' to do this, they're just clunky.

I'd like to write apps for the iPP, too. But I don't have the required 'development system' (a Mac), and the Swift environment that was recently announced seems more like a playground than a dev environment.

As for moving files around -- I find using Google Drive is the easiest cross-platform way to do this; but yes, it's mainly into the iPP, except for pictures & videos.

Post reply on HN