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Giving up the iPad-only travel dream

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Re: Giving up the iPad-only travel dream

#331

Post by loehnsberg »

jdshaffer wrote: post #184

I've tried doing iPad-only several times, but I'm a bit of a digital packrat, a highly-organized packrat, though. So I really miss a solid File Manager. I know Android is much better at this, but the default "Files" app in iOS just sucks -- I feel like I have to bounce between three or four apps just to get something simple done. Has anyone found a reasonable way to manage files on iOS?

The file manager has gotten better but it is still way behind Finder. Otherwise, pair it with a keyboard and mouse, open codespaces, and you have an excellent travel computer. Just don‘t expect to move files around.

Re: Giving up the iPad-only travel dream

#332

Post by mr_tombuben »

mvdtnz wrote: post #264
pavel_lishin wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You'd think depending on the person, they'd travel with EITHER their phone OR their iPad OR their laptop, depending on whether they are private people, non-technical "creatives" or IT/technical/dev folks, but instead, everybody appears to be travelling with ALL THREE devices instead I can't answer a call or text my family with my laptop while I'm on the go. I can't plug my macbook into a car to use maps or play mus…

Maybe it's an American thing but I don't think I know a single person who owns or uses an ipad, with the exception of rich parents who use them exclusively to distract children. I certainly don't notice a lot of ipad users in airports or trains.

I use an iPad exclusively at home on a couch/in bed. It's really great for low effort media consumption/web browsing, but I couldn't imagine bringing it with me somewhere instead of just taking a laptop. Even for media consumption on a train or airplane, I prefer a laptop because of it being easier to prop up in a cramped space.

Re: Giving up the iPad-only travel dream

#333

Post by iraqmtpizza »

gizajob wrote: post #301
iraqmtpizza wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no shortage of limitations in real life or on a massively powerful desktop computer. People on desktop are not gods. Nor are they unlimited. I don't know what creative solutions you're talking about but unless we're talking about things making art with limited colors and resolutions which is only necessary because that's what the customer has, there is not much point in limiting oneself artificially unless y…

In the case of music and recording, often times better and more creative records were made by people having to devise complicated solutions to having technology with huge limitations - a famous example being that Sgt Pepper by the Beatles was made using tape machines that were limited to four tracks. Hence those involved had to think deeply and be inspired to find solutions to “defeat the machine” (in the words of Pa…

Did Beethoven make his best stuff after he went deaf (genuinely curious; I'm inherently Beethskeptical after being Toccata-Fugue-D-minor-pilled)? Martin O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori were technologically well-resourced as far as I can tell. Why did nujabes pioneer lo-fi?

I don't think there's anything fundamentally limiting about the iPad or iPhone computationally. The only limiting factor is the interface. Which if you're trying to cultivate frustration in order to pour it into your album, sure. But mere frustration is better had elsewhere, imo.

I think that staying with the typewriter to write books is entirely different than adopting a curated, sandboxed mobile device as one's medium. Firstly, it was at one point the gold standard for writing. Never the case with touch screens. Secondly, iPhones and iPads are not simpler or less distracting than a typewriter, or even a computer not connected to the internet. playing with the chmod command from 1970 is really not that interesting.

But also I seriously doubt that people will look back on iPhone 5 videos like they do and will do vinyl records, LaserDiscs, or even CDs.

Re: Giving up the iPad-only travel dream

#334

Post by isametry »

TillE wrote: post #204
drewg123 wrote: post #36

I really, really wish that Apple had not let developers opt-out their apps from running on M1/M2 Macbooks. My use case is a long flight where I want to watch a movie on a screen bigger than my phone. For a while, some of the streaming service iOS apps ran on my MBP. In fact, I subscribed to HBO Max partially because their app worked on my MBP. But since their rebrand to Max, it no longer works.

I sympathize to some extent with their reasoning here, that developers for good reason want to sell separate macOS and iOS apps, and that they don't want a lot of customers complaining about a lousy UX. But there are plenty of cases where I cannot fathom why the developer has opted out. Like, Genshin Impact won't let you play on macOS, because ???

> sell separate macOS and iOS apps

Makes sense, so why not only offer this for devs who actually do that? Declare that a Mac version of the app already exists and let Apple check.

> they don't want a lot of customers complaining about a lousy UX.

This comes up every time and it's a legitimate concern, but IMO no way it warrants to completely block users from running compatible software on their computers. Call it "Unsupported Mode", spam me with warnings, prevent me from submitting reviews… but never completely block it. That's the asshole approach.

Re: Giving up the iPad-only travel dream

#335

Post by kaba0 »

makeitdouble wrote: post #216
nicbou wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The iPad is a much better tablet than the Surface. The art and note apps are incomparably better. The ebook reader apps too. iPad OS is limited, but it's fine for reading, writing and sketching. It's good to do that on a separate device that is not connected to work stuff. I can bring my iPad in the bedroom because it's just a fancy book. Windows is also far too needy for this sort of device. I returned my Surface af…

It comes down what you actually want to do. My time spent on the iPad was defined by what I couldn't do, and it was extremely frustrating, I ended up not doing it instead of go getting the laptop from across the house. Windows is not refined nor optimized for tablet use by any measure, but it actually does the job, instead of showing a cute and extremely refined middle finger half the time. The breaking point for me…

For what it’s worth, you can have ishell installed, put the file you want to convert into its drive, download almost any x86 binary to convert it, and you can use it, all from your ipad.

Sure, not the most convenient way, but there is no replacing something like pandoc.

Re: Giving up the iPad-only travel dream

#336

Post by rcarmo »

ellis0n wrote: post #220

I've been trying to use iPad as a developer tool for over 10 years now and it seems I'm starting to get it right. I have tried a lot of software since the creation of the iPhone 2G, connected hardware, joysticks, keyboards, mice, connected an iPad to a computer back in 2015. I think the iPad is the most successful device for smart people, but the problem is marketing. Apple had the ability to make a single system for…

I travel with an iPad mini and worked off it regularly using SSH and RDP. The only thing I really miss is a normal CLI environment (I use iSH and a-Shell with great success, but I would love a sandboxed ARM Linux environment).

Re: Giving up the iPad-only travel dream

#337

Post by gizajob »

iraqmtpizza wrote: post #323
gizajob wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but it’s not Apple’s fault the general public are lazy and stupid. I’m a creative and don’t do those things so much - I make records and read philosophy and write whatever book takes my fancy on the same device. It’s not Apple’s fault that when given a handheld supercomputer people use it for instagram - a black mirror reflects the good and bad of the human and that’s where we are. Steve Jobs really did want to…

I do remember breaking my ankle on my bicycle as a child; I don't recall having to jailbreak my bike, though. How does BitTorrent work via the app store by the way? Kappa.

I think you’re mixing apples and oranges.

Re: Giving up the iPad-only travel dream

#338

Post by rcarmo »

jll29 wrote: post #149

The key sentence here is: > This is the fundamental difference between the Mac (a platform that basically lets developers and users do anything they want) and the iPad (where if Apple doesn’t specifically allow it, it can’t be done). Apple (since Lisa/Mac, after Apple II, which had an open architecture) likes appliances and to control the user experience, so the iPad is "more Apple" than Macs are. Whenever I am waiti…

I did a lot of personal travel with an iPad Mini (plus BT mouse and keyboard) and do just fine with RDP connections to my office and home as needed. In fact, I’m typing this on the second iteration (the 5th Gen one) and hope to get a new one as soon as it’s launched.

There is certainly a lot you can do with an iPad if you have the right apps (I run full-fledged vim, with plugins, inside a-Shell and code Python, Lua, Janet and Guile inside a-Shell or iSH as required). I also dabble in music (plenty of amazingly cheap synth apps), but most people don’t have the patience to try these things out (and Jason Snell’s audio woes are something that runs deeper).

Re: Giving up the iPad-only travel dream

#339

Post by isametry »

oflannabhra wrote: post #167
TillE wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with a convertible MacBook is that you'd have to move the battery to behind the display, at which point you're really just making an iPad that can be attached to a keyboard dock and run macOS. I think the latter is a plausible evolution of the iPad Pro.

Apple’s big philosophy is that the interaction paradigm should be distinct, from the hardware to the software, and that mixing the two is confusing and a bad experience. I happen to agree with them, but I would love to be able to switch between the two. macOS is powerful, but adding touch to it would actually be terrible. Switching between those modes and input paradigms, while maintaining some level of context would…

That might have been their philosophy once, but important people who believed that seem to be gone now, because basically every piece of software that gets touched on the Mac now resembles an unloved offspring of their touch platforms.

See examples: Control Center, Share Sheet, Notifications, the entirety of the new System Settings app…

Re: Giving up the iPad-only travel dream

#340

Post by messe »

devnullbrain wrote: post #321
gizajob wrote: post #80

I wrote a 160,000 word book this year on an iPad Air with smart keyboard (I find how the pro keyboard doesn't fold all the way back to allow holding the iPad landscape too big of an annoyance to buy one). I think it's a brilliant device, and while limited, does do some things better than the Mac - annotating PDFs and ebooks with the Pencil being one of them. Also nice to hold a document one is working on in landscape…

I haven't used an iPad keyboard but 160,000 words is about 159,000 more than I could stomach writing on a Macbook keyboard - which is the best laptop keyboard I've tried. Perhaps I'm spoiled.

I've liked the recent XPS 13 Plus keyboards. I'd put them at least on par with recent Macbooks. Decent travel depth, but still limited as it's an Ultrabook.
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