
I was wrong about the iPad Pro - tortilla
https://char.gd/blog/2019/i-was-wrong-about-the-ipad-pro
======
plg
I just wish for:

1\. a desktop-grade web browser, e.g. chrome (actual chrome not an iOS chrome)

2\. better file system management

3\. better multitasking (e.g. multiple windows even from a single app)

4\. some way to actually code natively on the ipad, e.g. write and run python
code, C code, etc., I guess have a *nix shell. I don't need to "take over the
whole device" but I would like to be able to run code even if it's in a sort
of sandboxed environment

~~~
throwaway082729
You need a Pixelbook. I switched to a Pixelbook recently and haven't looked
back. It's great for note-taking, email (way better keyboard than an iPad
keyboard, Mac (eww)), etc. Has a terminal that runs whatever I want
(<signaling>I get to continue using emacs</signaling>) and use it in tablet
mode for reading (I read on the kindle a lot). I'm going to try out the pen
soon. I'd kill for the ability to write down notes in cursive or draw boxes.
Cons are keyboard getting dirty in tablet mode and Slack randomly crashing.

~~~
plg
I thought pixelbook is being discontinued?

~~~
lazzlazzlazz
You're reasonable to assume so - after the news that Google was scaling back
that team, there was rampant speculation and deafening silence from Google.
They really ought to say something. I actually avoided buying a Pixelbook that
same day despite a pressing need for that very reason.

------
graeme
>I initially grabbed the smaller iPad without the keyboard case, but in doing
so, I realized Apple actually made a mistake: the iPad Pro needs it to really
make the most of the device.

I actually prefer a $20 bluetooth keyboard. It’s easy to use away from the
ipad if I’m doing video or audio editing, and I can also raise the ipad in a
stand and use the keyboard detached. I find the keys better too, and it has
media shortcuts.

$20 anker keyboard: [https://www.amazon.com/Anker-Wireless-Bluetooth-Keyboard-
Rec...](https://www.amazon.com/Anker-Wireless-Bluetooth-Keyboard-
Rechargeable/dp/B00PIMKN1Q/)

Viozon ipad stand: [https://www.amazon.com/Viozon-Rotatable-Aluminum-Desktop-
Sur...](https://www.amazon.com/Viozon-Rotatable-Aluminum-Desktop-
Surface/dp/B01ALPUFYO/)

The stand is nice too. Super easy to rotate, or remove it.

My experience with the ipad pro is much as the OP describes. I find it really
helps focussed work, and in general is much more a joy to use than a computer.
I think the 120hz screen helps.

It cannot do everything thought. So there’s a certain category of stuff that’s
hard on ipad, and I do from an imac. This category is shrinking however.

I may switch to a USB keyboard with a dongle, as I do find a full fledged
computer keyboard more comfortable. The one downside there is you can’t remap
keys, so you need one made for mac.

~~~
jxdxbx
I use the Studio Neat Canopy case for the Apple Magic Keyboard with my iPad,
mostly because 1) I use my iPad as pure tablet a lot of the time, and doing
this with the keyboard attached, or removing the keyboard each time, is a pain
in the ass, and 2) I like writing with the iPad in portrait mode, but the
smart connector doesn’t allow this. I have found that typing on a full-size
software keyboard is not so bad (I have a 12.9” iPad, maybe it’s much worse on
the smaller ones).

I work most of the time from an iPad and when I can’t, an iMac. My iMac at
home though is now mostly just a glorified Plex server.

~~~
jxdxbx
Oh, and the Canopy specifically is what allows me to write in portrait without
needing a separate stand.

------
intellix
I really wish there was better pencil support in apps on the iPad. I'm working
remotely from the rest of the team which means I can't sit with someone and
draw out a diagram when I'm trying to explain things. If you're communicating
with Slack there's pretty much no support at all for it. Is there any chat app
that has first party support for pen? I don't want to crawl the web for some
sketch webapp and go through hoops just to sketch a couple of boxes and send
them.

~~~
srikz
This and native handwriting recognition support. Hoping for more closely
integrated pencil experience along with the rumoured mouse support at wwdc

------
karmakaze
Even a Surface Go beats a iPad Pro. I had one and changed it out, couldn't be
happier. For more juice I'll get a Surface Pro. WSL beats anything but native
linux.

~~~
jwho82
I love my little Surface Go, using it to write this reply now! I hope they
release a new one this year with a better CPU, and with WSL2 right around the
corner, it'll be the perfect tool for coding on the go.

~~~
karmakaze
Not only that but VS Code can now run 'Remote' in WSL with the UI in Windows
10 and everything else in WSL.

------
tootie
If you want a simplified desktop experience for non-coding tasks, a Chromebook
will coat about 1/5 of an iPad pro plus peripherals.

~~~
gatherhunterer
Can a user of a Chromebook completely opt out of sending any and all
information to Google while still getting updates and internet access?

~~~
saagarjha
From Google? No. But you can get updates and internet access if you install
Linux on the device.

~~~
shadowfacts
If you install Linux, it's not exactly a "simplified desktop experience".

~~~
saagarjha
Depends. It's entirely possible to have a simplified Linux desktop experience
(after all, that's what Chrome OS is…)

------
christopher8827
No 1 thing the iPad needs to do is coding. Its got such a long battery life, I
would have loved to use it to make code edits on the go. That's pretty much my
main grip with it at the moment.

~~~
j-pb
I felt the same, until I realized that you don't WANT to code ON the iPad.

Just grab Blink, a really nice Mosh client for iOs, and rent a small linux box
from whatever cloud provider you like (I use scaleway, because they are dirt
cheap and super convenient).

Thanks to LTE you've now got an always on remote terminal, that can perform
arbitrarily heavy compute tasks, without having any impact on portability or
battery life.

It's even good for you as a dev, because you'll get better at your CLI Foo,
and because you're SSH'd into a remote machine all day anyways, having to do
it in production when something goes wrong is a lot less stressful.

Also if you wanna do pair programming, you can simply share your TMux session
with somebody else, or give them access to whatever web frontent, notebook,
whatever, port you're running.

It feels strange at first but it's amazing once you get aclimated.

------
StillBored
"It feels backwards to say it, but because the iPad doesn't have multiple
floating windows, and no mouse, I'm able to focus on one thing at a time."

Uh, isn't that what tablet mode in win8/10 is for? It removes much of the
distractions and with an appropriate WP/text editor just sort of behaves like
a tablet, but with the option to flip back into desktop mode and run all those
"desktop" apps the Op is complaining about.

As much as I despise some of the crap MS forced on people with W10, the
convertible idea has a lot of merit. Particularly if your lugging a keyboard
around with the tablet all the time anyway. What MS needs is for dell/hp/etc
to start making little 7" tablets again, and then force some portion of their
workforce to use them so they understand why it was a miserable experience.
The result will be better for everyone.

~~~
dunnevens
You don't even need tablet mode. When working in Windows when I need to
absolutely concentrate, I just maximize the window and mute notifications.

~~~
StillBored
How old school! <chuckle>

There is even a key for it with win7+ win-uparrow.

There is also the option in the shortcut to automatically run any random
application maximized by default. That has been around for ages (XP/2000 at
least).

~~~
dunnevens
Hadn't thought of it as old school, but I guess you're right. I've been doing
it for a long, long time. Predating tablets by quite a bit. Occasionally get
funny looks, but it works for me.

------
clay_the_ripper
I have a theory that the iPad Pro is the perfect college student device. I
wish I could use one more for work but it doesn’t fit my use cases well. But
as a “college student” device it’s perfect.

-it lasts all day -it’s very light -quick to pull out/put away -no fan noise -it’s cheaper than a MacBook -it’s great for taking notes, recording your class -it’s great for email and other simple tasks -easy to take a picture of a whiteboard/assignment etc

unfortunately my day is spent switching between lots of tasks the iPad doesn’t
do well. Like pulling multiple assets from different locations for a 1 minuet
edit in photoshop, exporting and slotting into a landing page. The iPad Pro
would be abysmal for stuff like that.

------
iamleppert
It’s funny to me that he needs such a complicated setup to just write some
code. It feels like a crutch and in this case he has to wait for someone to
come along and add support for something before he can even do any work at
all. Crazy.

It makes me glad I’m an old school die hard vim user. Give me a basic SSH
client and I can be productive in virtually any environment.

------
rcarmo
I’ve been living off an iPad mini for a long while now (since the very first
model, which still works), and it is still my “most personal” computer. I do
SSH, drafts, Slack, e-mail, etc. from it, and am using it now. I even have a
Citrix X1 mouse for RDP access to servers.

But of late I’ve been eyeing the Surface Go for development, simply because it
can give me a local UNIX userland (and I’m already using Surface devices for
work anyway), as well as a normal desktop browse with zero compromises.

Sure, the tablet app ecosystem on Windows is... sub-optimal. But most of what
I actually need is available as web apps of some sort (I don’t even use Teams,
Slack or Outlook, I just use the web UIs in a browser 99% of the time these
days...).

Give me a decent terminal, a full browser and a mouse pointer, and I’ll move
the Earth :)

------
gumby
> There are a few other niggles that still bum me out, like just how poorly
> the Apple Pencil is supported for any sort of writing task—even OneNote,
> which is famous for transcribing handwriting, doesn't support it on iPad.

With all the (justifiable) complaints that macOS development lags iOS
development, this is an area where the situation is reversed: there's a
standard handwriting support, like dictation support, for every text widget.
You have to plug a pen tablet in of course (boo -- the huge touchpad should
work). But for some reason the handwriting support isn't automatic for iOS
apps.

------
Schreda
As people are more experimenting with the iPad and other tables to do some
real work I would like to share my findings as about how to use an iPad as an
development machine. Therefore I create an youtube channel and twitter
account. I try to keep it updated frequently. Feel free to have a look :D

[https://twitter.com/schreda](https://twitter.com/schreda)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXXtTYYwRKM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXXtTYYwRKM)

------
winningcontinue
It was a great device from the get go. the resolution on such a large device
is a game changer. detail all the spec you want, but holding it physically in
your hands you'd experience what I can't describe. The reading and stylus
input is very close to natural paper. Thanks, but I didn't need another shill
blogpost about how it works for their coding workflow especially when it was
wrong in the first place.

------
boardwaalk
He mentioned Visual Studio Code; have people used Code Server on an iPad? It
worked surprisingly well on Safari for Mac (not being Chrome) when I tried it.

I've considered getting an iPad for note taking. It seems a bit overkill
for... note taking. And I'm not sure what the experience is like compared to
pen and paper. But I hate keeping notebooks organized, have them not be
searchable, etc.

~~~
larrywright
It does not. Known issue with the rendering engine that Code uses. I was
disappointed too. Apparently a fix is coming at some point.

------
jerkstate
the iPad's biggest weak point by far is Safari and its inability to do
anything in the background (slow pages should load and render even if they're
not in focus; I should be able to download things in the background). But it
is pretty great for hobby coding.

I use Blink for mosh (ssh connections get closed if you leave the app in the
background for too long) and Wireguard for VPN to my Linux VPC (it's so
good!). I started using a code folding config in my remote vim so I can fit
more stuff on my screen.

I recently started using Juno for Jupyter notebooks on my iPad. It's 15 bucks
and requires a bit of work to get SSL certs set up on self-hosted instances,
but it's actually usable unlike Safari.

The Logitech smart keyboard is far better than the Apple keyboard IMO but I
don't think they've made one for the newest model iPad Pro yet. (I have the
2017 model)

------
_bxg1
I use my personal laptop 80% for coding and maybe 20% for writing, so I guess
this isn't for me unfortunately. I definitely can see how the single-tasking
and LTE would be beneficial.

------
MuffinFlavored
I would buy one if it had Bluetooth mouse support I think.

~~~
walterbell
Likely to arrive in iOS 13, already present via "accessibility" interfaces and
remote desktop (e.g. when using Windows remotely from iPad),
[https://9to5mac.com/2019/05/05/ipad-mouse-
support/](https://9to5mac.com/2019/05/05/ipad-mouse-support/)

------
Jemm
Multitasking on the iPad is a bit of a lie. Apple is so eager to kill
background apps for the sake of thinner lighter devices.

As an example, try downloading a large file in a browser. You will quickly
find that the download will stop if you switch apps or let the device go into
standby.

------
_ph_
I have an iPad Pro 13" and I do love it for some tasks, most of all, as a
portable photo album, as photography is a big hobby of mine. From the hardware
perspective, it could be the portable dream laptop replacement. Perfect
screen, great battery life, small device. Where it is completely held back is
the software:

\- a lot of small things. Picture in picture is a great feature, but it works
inconsitently between apps, with some not at all, and why can't I arbitrarily
size the video and put it into the corners? While per default watching a
video/tv program rather small, I would like to have the ability to enlarge the
picture, if something interesting comes up.

\- multitasking: haven't really been able to use that. 50:50 works sometimes,
75:25 usually is too small for the 25 part, should allow at least 66:33, if
not completely flexible. Same for the hover over app, should allow for larger
sizes.

\- file management: this is really painful, so many limitations in that area.
No ability to copy files from an attached USB stick or SD card into iCloud. No
general ability to move files between apps, even if those in principle support
the file type. No ability to add a video to the TV app from iCloud, none to
add songs to the music app.

\- applications: if your productive use of the iPad fits to one app from the
app store: congratulations, if not, you are basically out of luck. There does
not seem to be even a MUD client available for iPads. "Blink" is a pretty
great SSH client, the best I found so far, but based on html rendering...

Why isn't there a version of Termux for the iPad? It allows so many quick
usages, it really adds a lot of productivity. If Apple doesn't trust app
programmers with such a thing, why don't they offer a port themselves in a
proper sandbox? I don't need to access the system files, a small chroot jail
would be fine (perhaps with iCloud drive mounted?). Of course, given the power
of the iPad, why not a small "Linux" app with a Wayland desktop? Apple, if you
think that would be a big replacement for paid apps, that says a lot about the
app universe :p

And of course: a development environment. If general software development is
too "dangerous" for an iPad, why is there no App creation environment? A self
hosted environment would rock. Anyone remembers what Visual Basic 1-6 did for
Windows? Why isn't there an equivalent on the iPad? Anyone at Apple ever saw a
SmallTalk system? Just give Alan Kay a call, if you can't google it :p

And of course: I like the smart keyboards, but how comes that at Apple no one
understands the need for the ESC key and to a lesser extend the function keys,
if you are advertising a "professional" device?

~~~
walterbell
_> Picture in picture is a great feature, but it works inconsitently between
apps, with some not at all, and why can't I arbitrarily size the video and put
it into the corners?_

PiP video can be resized, up to a limit of about 1/4 of the screen.

 _> While per default watching a video/tv program rather small, I would like
to have the ability to enlarge the picture, if something interesting comes
up._

There's an icon (diagonal arrow) to exit PiP mode and return to full-screen in
the original app.

 _> file management: this is really painful, so many limitations in that area.
No ability to copy files from an attached USB stick_

iXpand USB drives are supported by some apps (e.g. nPlayer, LumaFusion).
There's a rumor that external storage support will arrive in iOS13, hopefully
without too many restrictions.

~~~
_ph_
_PiP video can be resized, up to a limit of about 1 /4 of the screen._

Right, thats the problem. It is nice for keeping track of what happens, but
e.g. when watching a football game, you want the ability to magnify, as I
wrote, to an arbitrary video size. Also, why can't I put the video into the
corner, why does it keep a significant distance to the screen edges, so
covering more of my app than necessary for the video size.

 _There 's an icon (diagonal arrow) to exit PiP mode and return to full-screen
in the original app._

Which can be slow, and not work at all. Also, it might be impossible to get
back to the PIP (depending on the app) and also affects the app you were using
with the PIP. Why can't I just enlarge the PIP to cover most of my screen, at
least up to 75%?

~~~
walterbell
Windowing will change in iOS13. Hopefully demos will appear at WWDC in a few
weeks.

~~~
_ph_
I sincerely hope so, assuming it changes into a really useful UI. The PIP is a
prominent example of some iOS restrictions which don't seem to have any
technical justifications. Someone seems to have decided it looks cute as it
is, without any usability in mind. The macOS version of PIP has the same
restrictions - a big reason why I haven't used this feature in years. At least
you are allowed to freely position the PIP when pressing the CMD key.

------
jordache
steve jobs was soo off with the stylus being out of fashion. totally wrong...
the apple pencil is probably THE only strong differentiators for the ipad.

~~~
pvg
Steve Jobs was quite right that a stylus is not great for a small portable
device with a touch screen. It's clunky, you can easily misplace the stylus
and you can't have multi-touch gestures. There are lots of specialized tasks
that are better with a stylus but there are a lot of specialized tasks that
are better with a combine harvester.

~~~
petecox
The iPhone popularised capacitive touch.

His comments on styluses should be seen in light of the technology of the time
(Newton/Maemo/Palm OS/WinCE etc) whose input was stabbing at a resistive
screen.

(That's not to repudiate finger input being superior to pen for many
interactions but styluses of 2019 use vastly different tech to those of 2007.)

~~~
rchaud
I'd say Steve Jobs' public comments should be seen in light of his main role
as a product pitchman. When the 9.7" iPad was the only model available, he
criticized the ergonomics of smaller models by Samsung, claiming that "you'd
need sand paper to sand down your finger" to use them [0].

Meanwhile, he was overseeing the development of the 7.9 inch iPad Mini, which
wouldn't come out until late 2012.

[0]: [https://www.itproportal.com/2010/10/21/steve-jobs-wrong-
abou...](https://www.itproportal.com/2010/10/21/steve-jobs-wrong-about-7-inch-
ipad/)

