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Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

technicallychallenged.substack.com

491–500 of 533 posts

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if what you said was true -- that an iPad + keyboard is heavier and more expensive -- an Air is less flexible, has only one usable form factor, and has drastically less battery life than the iPad solution.

Are you saying apple is lying? Because they publish both weight and battery life numbers. Hint: "less" means the number is smaller.

I'm saying you're arguing in bad faith, and are thus probably not worth engaging with further.

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#493

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…

Touchscreen = consumption. Physical keyboard = production. My stereotypical, effective perspective of digital productivity. right now I'm on a touchscreen device fighting that sorry excuse for a keyboard to type; I'm in consumption mode. Not fooling myself.

Touchscreen = navigation and manipulation

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So your alternative to mean old Apple not allowing you to run Linux is to have a shitty experience running Linux on hardware that wouldn’t meet the needs of a modern consumer ?

Maybe. Apple doesn't let you put third-party OSes on iPhones or iPads, it's unclear what would happen if they did. It would probably start with something niche like a barebones Linux port, but then it might turn into an Asahi-style project that does give the user a perfectly normal user experience. Maybe people start shipping CalyxOS-style hardened iOS distributions for people who want to further neuter Apple's contr…

What’s “unclear”? A modern web browser wouldn’t be any more performant than a safari is in 2023 on any pre-64 bit iOS device.

Not that 32-bit or 64-bit by itself makes a difference. But the devices were dreadfully slow and RAM constrained by todays standards.

Which modern browser engine do you real think would work decently on such a device?

Besides that, no pre- 2012 iOS devices supported 4G and the carriers are dropping 3G support completely in the US by the end of the year.

Apple hasn’t abandoned any 64 bit post 2013 device yet. It reduced a security update for the iPhone 5s this year.

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. I…

This comment is bizarrely antagonistic for no reason and I would appreciate if you'd knock it off. I literally admitted I was incorrect in thinking that I could comfortably write code on my iPad, a point that largely agrees with what you're saying, but for some reason you still feel the need to argue even further.

It should be immediately apparent to most people that I made my decision based on my own personal context and requirements at the time, just as you made your decision in your own context, which is why we each came to a different conclusion. I already made it clear the iPad was only intended to supplement my laptop, not replace it, so obviously I didn't expect it to fully replace my development workflow either. I just thought it might be usable for casual coding when I wasn't at my desk, and I was willing to accept that I might be wrong in that.

There's no point in trying to convince me now that the iPad dev experience sucks, because obviously I already know that, as evidenced by the fact that I literally said it two comments ago (and because you're wrong about why it sucks). You don't win anything for proving I was wrong again.

What I really don't get is why you feel the need to tell me I'm wrong about what the iPad is capable of when I actually bought one and wrote a decent amount of code on it, while you admit you dismissed it as an option with a few minutes of consideration. I have literally written, run, and compiled code on my iPad both locally and remotely using the dev tools you claim don't exist or don't count or are too janky or whatever. What is the point in arguing with me about that when we both already agree it's probably not worth programming on an iPad either way?

The funny thing is that tooling wasn't even the main reason I moved away from coding on my iPad. The tooling wasn't my favorite, but it does exist and was passable for my limited requirements. I just didn't like iPadOS's mediocre multitasking and weird conflicts with key bindings in browser-based dev tools. Were it not for that, I probably would've kept programming on my iPad for a while longer.

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#496

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. 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'd argue it's a terrible work machine for "most jobs" because it's grossly over priced for them. Dirt cheap laptops and tablets can do email and documents. A tablet starting at $799 that's been touted for it's performance should not have "can do most jobs" as some sort of feather in it's cap. It's entirely justified to expect more from a device with this price and power.

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe. Apple doesn't let you put third-party OSes on iPhones or iPads, it's unclear what would happen if they did. It would probably start with something niche like a barebones Linux port, but then it might turn into an Asahi-style project that does give the user a perfectly normal user experience. Maybe people start shipping CalyxOS-style hardened iOS distributions for people who want to further neuter Apple's contr…

What’s “unclear”? A modern web browser wouldn’t be any more performant than a safari is in 2023 on any pre-64 bit iOS device. Not that 32-bit or 64-bit by itself makes a difference. But the devices were dreadfully slow and RAM constrained by todays standards. Which modern browser engine do you real think would work decently on such a device? Besides that, no pre- 2012 iOS devices supported 4G and the carriers are dro…

> But the devices were dreadfully slow and RAM constrained by todays standards.

Yeh. That's why people turn them into DNLA servers or FTP heads or motion sensors or security cameras or weather machines, spotifyd servers, Docker playgrounds, RC cars, GPIO controllers, home assistants, esoteric K8s nodes, et. al.. There's plenty of things you can do with hardware you don't intend to directly interact with, things that the iPhone is perfectly suited to do.

> Which modern browser engine do you real think would work decently on such a device?

Webkit? You can still build it for 32-bit arches, I don't really see what the holdup is. Firefox could squeeze into ~100mb of memory if you're light on tabs, and Chrome would... well, run. With a little help from swap space.

> Besides that, no pre- 2012 iOS devices supported 4G and the carriers are dropping 3G support completely in the US by the end of the year.

That's fine. If you want to use iOS, use iOS. Running the entire iOS userland would be a complete waste of CPU cycles if you wanted to just use it as a homelab.

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#498
post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is part of the genius strategy that most people don't see. There is an entire generation of people growing up where iPhones and iPads are the computer. Many of them also don't even know that there is a difference between a mobile device and an iPhone. Android is this weird sort of alternative that nobody uses, and Windows is this "PC" thing which they've never used but they hear that some people use for gam…

Android is only used by 80% of the rest of the world, but who's counting anyway.

So is metric

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#499
Why would you want to use an iPad for coding? Honestly, the laptop form factor is pretty great for coding on the go. If you're going to reinvent a solution for a problem already solved, it's need to be a better solution, not a gimmicky different solution. The iPad is a pretty cool device, but for coding there are simply far better solutions.

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#500
post #268

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…

I’ve never really understood why folks complain that a screwdriver makes a lousy hammer.
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