Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake • Hacker News Board

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#451

Post by freedomben » Fri, Jun 30, 2023, 5:59 PM UTC

duped wrote: post #424

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'm somewhat convinced that Apple wants to remove the notion of a Unix filesystem (there are files and directories of files/directories and they have owners/permissions/etc) from their users' understanding of how to use a computer. Both out of ideological purity ("what is a computer?") and so that their users can't use a different device that has an entirely different mental model for interaction. I already see this…

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 gaming. To these people, the Apple way is the way, and converting them to anything else will be nigh impossible. The current professionals that find iPads insufficient will age out, and the next generation will consider them the standard workstation.

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#452

Post by randyrand » Fri, Jun 30, 2023, 5:59 PM UTC

treprinum wrote: post #449

Seriously, what's the point of iPad Pro? I can understand iPad as a media viewing device but why would I want iPad Pro?

The point of it is obvious — the margins on it are huge. As they say, a fool and his money…

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#453

Post by goosedragons » Fri, Jun 30, 2023, 6:00 PM UTC

diffeomorphism wrote: post #370

the__alchemist wrote: post #298

Earlier 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.

There's a few OneNote of course, Nebo, Noteshelf, Squid which is really an Android app. All of those are on iOS and Android too. Microsoft Journal I just discovered and seems alright.

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#454

Post by mdhb » Fri, Jun 30, 2023, 6:01 PM UTC

refulgentis wrote: post #401

_fat_santa wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if you're using it primarily as web browser you can get a Chromebook that will do the job for a fraction of the cost.

This is an excellent & undervalued point: chromeos is basically an easier to use and maintain iPad Pro at half the price, with a performant Linux container I’m really pleased with my $4K MacBook Pro M2, really amazing device. but after 3-4 years of chromeos before that, I’d trade it for a $1000 i7 Chromebook in a heartbeat, if it wasn’t for darn local LLMs. They’re not even good or fast but I need them professionally…

Will also second this. I’ve used on old linux box with ChromeOS flex as my daily driver doing fullstack web and mobile development for a bit over a year now and it’s easily the best desktop experience I’ve ever had compared to Windows, Linux and MacOS.

Highly underrated indeed.

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#455

Post by freedomben » Fri, Jun 30, 2023, 6:01 PM UTC

arvinsim wrote: post #433

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…

IMO, I think they figured out what they want. They don't want iPads to cannibalize their Macs. They then kneecap iPads accordingly.

Interesting, I think it's the opposite. I think they would love iPads to cannabalize or eat entirely Macs. Macs are still fairly open compared to the iPad, and this allows people to use the device as a general purpose computer (instead of an appliance) without Apple as the gatekeeper/protector.

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#456

Post by Sirened » Fri, Jun 30, 2023, 6:01 PM UTC

There's definitely a funky curve of what you can and cannot comfortably do on an iPad. If you're pinned to IDEs and need lots of local graphical tools to support development, an iPad is unusable. If you already have to run all your work remotely since the tools are too heavy even for a laptop (like me with EDA tools), it turns out that the iPad makes for a great little client. I use mine a lot with iSH. I can do work locally in vim and then submit jobs to the compute cluster, it's the exact same workflow I'd use on a laptop.

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#457

Post by sweetjuly » Fri, Jun 30, 2023, 6:06 PM UTC

fuomag9 wrote: post #216

weikju wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also Blink [1] which includes a local shell (limited), ssh and mosh support, and comes with a local-first, but remote-dependent, vscode implementation. Works with vscode.dev, code-server (the coder.com and microsoft version), coder.com etc. Not free but a free TestFlight versions available if you accept to be a beta tester of sorts. I've had moderate success using it, but overall the code-server experience ha…

If you want to compile it yourself it’s free, as it’s under GPLv3 so you’re free to remove the license stuff if you wanted to

To save anyone else the trouble, after walking through a fairly broken build process I discovered that the open source version is very much not in sync with the App Store version. I'm not sure exactly how old it is (the last real commit is a year old) but it lacks most of the current App Store functionality and has various issues with the terminal rendering incorrectly. Blink may have been FOSS at one point but it isn't anymore. The App Store version is $8 per month which is a bit steep for my needs since things like iSH [1] exist and are actually FOSS.

[1] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ish-shell/id1436902243

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#458

Post by vonwoodson » Fri, Jun 30, 2023, 6:07 PM UTC

planb wrote: post #39

I don't see what people expect. The iPad is a portable touch-first device with a small screen and a locked-down operating system. The first two are by-design for the tablet form factor, so this will never change. And I don't expect Apple to open up the system, but it does not sound as if this was the main concern in this article. So why not simply get a MacBook Air, which is a completely capable, awesome coding devic…

I can answer this honestly: We want to believe that the iPad is the answer to so many of computer's problems, that the iPhone is So Amazing to be able to do so much of what we need a computer to do that a Bigger iPhone would be the ideal computer.

I don't quite know why Apple doesn't see the iPad as a developer machine. Being able to program the machine that you're working on is a, if not the, meaning of a general purpose computer and we all want it to work So Bad. But, this blog really echos what any of us who have really tried to untether ourselves from the traditional keyboard/monitor or mainframe programming have discovered: The iPad (and the iPhone) are appliances and not actual computers.

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#459

Post by iLoveOncall » Fri, Jun 30, 2023, 6:09 PM UTC

scarface_74 wrote: post #406

iLoveOncall wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who talked about i9? And were did the part about battery life go? I could easily find one but you'll keep moving the goalpost.

You did. > x86, a 2019 model (and I had this behavior from the start). > Lol. My MacBook Pro loses battery even when plugged and is constantly at 100% fan speed no matter what it is doing (or not doing).

They have i5's and i7's. I'm not even sure they have i9's actually...

Re: Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

#460

Post by ndiddy » Fri, Jun 30, 2023, 6:11 PM UTC

bamfly wrote: post #291

manmal wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The moment macOS is shackled any more, I'll move to Linux. And I suspect I'm not alone in this, and that Apple knows.

Mainly DOS/Windows user from ~1992-2000. Mainly Linux 2000-2011. Mac since. > The moment macOS is shackled any more I hadn't really noticed it being "shackled" at all. What do you mean?

If you don’t have an Apple developer account and you give a program you wrote to someone else, their computer will refuse to open it unless they go into System Preferences and whitelist the program.