I thought it was going to be perfect since it's much lighter and thinner than a Surface Pro 4.
You need a remote server for this to work, since you won't get access to the underlying shell without jailbreaking. Depending on reliable networks was mistake #1.
Also, while Panic was a good enough terminal emulator, its redrawing was unreliable when switching from app to app. This might have changed with iOS 11, but it bugged me to no end before.
Lastly, I learned that much of the web (and some apps in particular, namely Remote Desktop) still thinks that you have a mouse. I used Cloudcraft when it first came out to draw some diagrams for an interview. I straight-up could not do it without a mouse, and iOS (stubbornly) does not support mousing. This on top of buggy CMD+TAB functionality and some apps straight up not working without a mouse ended the experiment for me.
The Apple USB Camera adapter[1] would let you connect your Ergodox to the iPad. If you need power too there's a USB 3 version with an extra lightning port.
After I returned a MBP ‘17 (twice) because of the horrible keyboard I also switched to an iPad. I’m still a student so all I need to do is write code in an editor and SSH into my Mac or Pi to compile/run it. It works great, and it’s a huge step up from my non-retina MBP that’s now a desktop computer.
The only two things I have not been able to replace is (yup..) the proprietary Xcode for the occasional venture into iOS development, and oddly enough: Sketch. You’d expect that the iPad is the perfect device for a Sketch-type app (bar 3rd-party plugins..), but nothing ticks all the boxes just yet.
An interesting advantage of iOS that I find is the focus gained. It feels as though switching to a different app requires more deliberate thought than on macOS. I used to do 9 things at once and completely lose my train of thought in all of them and I have less of that on iOS. Or I suffer from Stockholm’s Syndrome, that could also be it.
Yeah, the only really useful thing that came out of this is the my shell docker image with everything I need. That way you can use the iPad if you really have (or want) to, and your normal computers otherwise.
I wouldn't use it as my main computer, but I've gone to Hackathons with a cheap Android tablet, wireless mouse, and keyboard. It's a lot of fun unless you get one (like the 2nd gen Nexus 7) that can't do Bluetooth and Wi-Fi reliably at the same time.
Yeah, if I run everything somewhere else, open my macbook and just SSH in there, guess what? Thing does not get warm, battery life is awesome, I can plug in a bunch of perihperals, and whenever I am completely voided of connectivity for a longer period I actually CAN work properly on the local machine.
Is this some sort of guerilla marketing for the iPad?
