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Buffereditor – Code and Text Editor for iPhone, iPad and iPad Pro

buffereditor.com

101–110 of 120 posts

Re: Buffereditor – Code and Text Editor for iPhone, iPad and iPad Pro

#101
post #5

I appreciate the effort that goes into these products but I find the market position weird. Case in point: by the time I add a keyboard case to my 11" iPad Pro, it weighs more than my MacBook Air does and it's not a lot smaller. I think I should just take the MacBook Air with me. That has the same CPU, storage and memory and I can run full stack on it fine. That is not to denigrate the usefulness of the iPad, which I…

I bought an M1 iPad Pro (12”?) last year and feel about the same. The processor is overkill and the battery life suffers as a result. It’s bulky, not nice on my lap (w/ keyboard) and is heavier than the more capable MBA. It does have some redeeming features which stop me from selling it: + Excellent mini-LED screen (some bad ‘blooming’ effects though) + It’s highly portable without the keyboard + It’s great for weird…

Concepts (https://concepts.app/en/) has been my go-to for several years. Several engineers I know use it for much of their draft work. I don't do much beyond diagrams and wireframes, but I think it covers at least half your points, and the UI is pretty wonderful.

Last I checked, you can markup PDFs in iCloud without importing / exporting, but YMMV.

Re: Buffereditor – Code and Text Editor for iPhone, iPad and iPad Pro

#102
Looks great, just a comment on the marketing screenshots. There seems to be an awful lot of "wasted" space in the editors. Maybe at least consider showing code that is a bit wider ? ~80 chars? (maybe HTML Code?) I feel like horizontal space is way more important on a 9.7" screen than on a 24" monitor.

Re: Buffereditor – Code and Text Editor for iPhone, iPad and iPad Pro

#103
post #5

I appreciate the effort that goes into these products but I find the market position weird. Case in point: by the time I add a keyboard case to my 11" iPad Pro, it weighs more than my MacBook Air does and it's not a lot smaller. I think I should just take the MacBook Air with me. That has the same CPU, storage and memory and I can run full stack on it fine. That is not to denigrate the usefulness of the iPad, which I…

Plus, your MacBook Air comes with a calculator.

This continues to baffle me. Apple's usually so good at the extra first party software, and they already have an iOS calculator on iPhones. WTF.

I get that they don't do it for polish reasons or whatever, but just letting the iPhone version run on the iPad would be a huge improvement.

Re: Buffereditor – Code and Text Editor for iPhone, iPad and iPad Pro

#104
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know of any suitable alternatives? I guess there’s always Android. I’ll stick with (jailbroken) iOS, thanks.

Blink Shell (which is free) but requires VPS to work with.

Awesome! I appreciate the recommendation.

https://blink.sh/

https://github.com/blinksh/blink

Re: Buffereditor – Code and Text Editor for iPhone, iPad and iPad Pro

#105
post #30

> Easily develop software, view code or take notes on the go "Develop software", which means writing code without the ability to run them, or the ability to compile multiple files as a "project", like all the other code editors on iOS? I stopped paying attention to these apps because of how App artificially limit what apps can do. Writing Java offline? Good, but you can compile one class at a time, and the possibilit…

Why should Apple be obligated to make their hardware open? You have the option of not buying Apple products. Apple is not forcing anyone to buy their products. Apple is a private company. The vast majority of their customers don’t need to worry about compiling their own software. Apple is selling a product for the average consumer. Arguably, Apple doesn’t want hardcore users like yourself as a user. Hardcore users ar…

This is a forum for technologists who are often interested in this functionality. Many have fallen for Apple's shiny marketing, and they have every right to complain if they feel they have been hoodwinked. It helps other people make better purchasing decisions.

Re: Buffereditor – Code and Text Editor for iPhone, iPad and iPad Pro

#106
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a bit surprising actually. The play store kinda sucks but I generally can find more flexible apps on there than iOS store. I see a lot of people run an SSH client to a server in order to edit and run code. Is that an option for you?

There's ssh clients on iOS as well. There's termux which is a linux userland compiled for Android, more or less. I vaguely remember some play store policy issues with that. Last time I tried it I couldn't install anything as they were out of CDN quota for the packages.

On iOS the termux equivalent is iSH and a-shell. Both of these are, somehow, Apple-approved, free downloads from the App Store, and generally work well[0]. But they all have had to fight Apple on Section 2.5.2, which is kind of similar to whatever was tripping up termux on Google Play.

Ostensibly, 2.5.2 should mean "do not hide things from App Review by loading unreviewed code", which is entirely reasonable and defensible. But in practice, App Review likes to interpret it as "do not allow the user to load unreviewed code onto their device" - which neatly prohibits all emulation and virtualization apps. iSH was banned for a time because of this exact provision - it's an x86 userland emulator with an API-compatible Linux kernel shim, much like that weird Java MIPS emulator[1] a lot of old CS courses taught assembly and OS dev in. The reason why iSH is back up is because App Review changed their mind, for reasons I don't quite understand.

There are on-device code interpreters for scripting languages in the App Store too - 2.5.2 has a separate, explicit carveout for them that Apple made very clear in the iDOS 2 rejection does not apply to emulators. In fact, that rejection letter pretty much spells out in plain language that Apple thinks emulators are piracy tools. They rejected UTM's TestFlight submissions on a similar basis, albeit with less righteous indignation and more silence.

I think the biggest problem here is the "you're holding it wrong" factor, though. Apple didn't notice iDOS 2 until media outlets were telling people how to install Windows 3.1 onto it. One of Apple's big no-nos is "do not give the user a windowing interface", because the core philosophy of iOS is that touch inputs need dedicated software with different code from mouse input[2]. Likewise, Apple doesn't think coding on an iPad is a good idea. That 2.5.2 carveout I mentioned before patronizingly calls those script interpreters "learn-to-code apps", with the idea that these are educational tools and that developers are expected to graduate to a Mac in order to get real work done.

Google likes to blindly copy what Apple does sometimes, without understanding why and what tradeoffs Apple is making. In the case of termux, Android used to be way less strict about loading code and let apps load binaries straight from user data; but they decided to enforce the same restrictions Apple does, which broke the app if they updated it for Android 10. The underlying problem is, again, "you're holding it wrong" - the people who work on security for these devices at both Apple and Google do not consider development workflows and do not want to have to do so. It's much easier to keep malware off a device if you just put your foot down and say "no programming on-device".

[0] I can't get Rust to run on iSH, and a-shell would require patching it into `ios-system` or retargeting rustc to run in WASI hosts.

[1] MARS, I think it was called?

[2] This is literally the reason why the iPad was even created. Back in the days of Windows XP, one of Steve Jobs' friends was bugging him about how XP tablets were going to storm the market. Jobs had Apple make a tablet computer demo that only accepted finger input, and this demo later became the iPhone's touch input mechanism. The entirety of what we awkwardly call "mobile devices" today exists purely out of spite.

Yes, I know Catalyst muddies the waters on this, and the Magic Keyboard breaks this ideology in half. I'm literally typing on a Magic Keyboard right now and it absolutely does make the iPad the most confused device I've ever used.

Re: Buffereditor – Code and Text Editor for iPhone, iPad and iPad Pro

#107
post #30

> Easily develop software, view code or take notes on the go "Develop software", which means writing code without the ability to run them, or the ability to compile multiple files as a "project", like all the other code editors on iOS? I stopped paying attention to these apps because of how App artificially limit what apps can do. Writing Java offline? Good, but you can compile one class at a time, and the possibilit…

Why should Apple be obligated to make their hardware open? You have the option of not buying Apple products. Apple is not forcing anyone to buy their products. Apple is a private company. The vast majority of their customers don’t need to worry about compiling their own software. Apple is selling a product for the average consumer. Arguably, Apple doesn’t want hardcore users like yourself as a user. Hardcore users ar…

Same way as Apple isn't obligated to make their hardware open we're not obligated to abstain from criticism.

Re: Buffereditor – Code and Text Editor for iPhone, iPad and iPad Pro

#108
post #85

Maybe I could code on an iPad Pro, but definitely not an iPhone. The thought of coding on a phone is terrifying, unless you're one of those people who is super good at manipulating text on a phone. I'm not one of those people.

Different preferences. Some people are in situations where they only have a phone and want to be able to do something. The app shouldn’t be restricted to iPad only due to lack of imagination.

My friend wrote two(!) novels on his lunch breaks using an iPhone and a Bluetooth keyboard.

Re: Buffereditor – Code and Text Editor for iPhone, iPad and iPad Pro

#109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should Apple be obligated to make their hardware open? You have the option of not buying Apple products. Apple is not forcing anyone to buy their products. Apple is a private company. The vast majority of their customers don’t need to worry about compiling their own software. Apple is selling a product for the average consumer. Arguably, Apple doesn’t want hardcore users like yourself as a user. Hardcore users ar…

This is a forum for technologists who are often interested in this functionality. Many have fallen for Apple's shiny marketing, and they have every right to complain if they feel they have been hoodwinked. It helps other people make better purchasing decisions.

> Many have fallen for Apple's shiny marketing

Has Apple marketed iOS as a self-hosting software development device ?

> This is a forum for technologists who are often interested in this functionality

Are people who are interested in functionality seriously expecting Apple to be the most “functional”? Isn’t that the whole schpiel of Linux, open source, where everything is customizable? Why are people seeking out Apple then? This same forum frequently complains about Apple’s pricing and does comparative pricing for similar, or rather analogous, commodity hardware. If things were really comparable and substitutable that easy, then all else being equal people would be happy with the cheaper option instead of being upset that Apple doesn’t provide x, y, z.

People are desiring Apple’s hardware, form factor, quality and design. The R&D in these areas are funded by the preferences of average consumer, and the pro/semi-pro media creatives. It feels like a sense of entitlement that Apple’s R&D / strategy in building sleek consumer products that made Apple the most valuable company should now focus specifically on developers, who may not make ROI sense.

Opening up the platform for such things that running arbitrary code poses security risks, but controlling that risks makes the user interface / preferences more complex. That’s the strategy that Google / Android took. But if this approach was superior, why are these same technologists fawning over Apple then ?

Re: Buffereditor – Code and Text Editor for iPhone, iPad and iPad Pro

#110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a forum for technologists who are often interested in this functionality. Many have fallen for Apple's shiny marketing, and they have every right to complain if they feel they have been hoodwinked. It helps other people make better purchasing decisions.

> Many have fallen for Apple's shiny marketing Has Apple marketed iOS as a self-hosting software development device ? > This is a forum for technologists who are often interested in this functionality Are people who are interested in functionality seriously expecting Apple to be the most “functional”? Isn’t that the whole schpiel of Linux, open source, where everything is customizable? Why are people seeking out Appl…

> Has Apple marketed iOS as a self-hosting software development device ?

Apple has marketed iPhone as an everything device. "There's an app for that."

> But if this approach was superior, why are these same technologists fawning over Apple then ?

People feel a psychological need to justify their expensive purchases. On some axes, Apple's hardware is superior to alternatives. On pretty much all axes, Apple's software is inferior. People understandably want the best of all worlds, but in practice, they have to make compromises. If they find that they do not like the compromises they have made, they understandably will complain. Complaining about what is wrong with each device incentivizes companies to make them better, and criticizing people for complaining is not helpful.

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