A Computer for Everything: One Year of iPad Pro | Hacker News Reader

A Computer for Everything: One Year of iPad Pro

macstories.net

Decent writer looks for a niche that's not occupied and says 'hey this will do'. Then tries to convince us it is all well. It is not -- the emperor is naked.

I like how Federico does his job but I really don't like 'lets pretend iPad can replace proper computer' approach.

Matt Gemmell took the same path recently and it won't end well too.

Why not?

It will not work for everyone but I think it will for a lot of people.

As much as I dislike the iPad there are some people that it is truly better. We tried giving my 90 year old great grandmother a windows 98 machine a looong time ago so she could send email with us but she really couldn't figure it out. We got her an iPad the other year and while she has ended up with it stuck in airplane mode (and a number of other similar problems) a number of times, she now functions with it. (we think this is important because she lives by herself now and still refuses to move down with us.)

I don't know, I kinda like he took a powerful tablet then added enough hardware to make it more computer-like. Never owned an iPad but this looks somewhat appealing (though overpriced) if I'd have the same use for it as the OP. I don't so I'll likely never buy such thing and rather stick with actual computers but still it looks for it works out well and probably 'will do' just fine.

This is my biggest problem. This article is a really long tutorial on how to make an iPad sorta kinda do the things my Mac already does out of the box. Why? There's never a convincing argument why I would want to do this.

The argument is more app innovation is happening on mobile apps than PCs these days, and the simpler paradigm allows for more concise workflows and you can do a good deal more of your stuff just carrying around a iPad or even from your phone than you can when living in a MacOS world.

HN is probably the wrong audience because windows and filesystems are uniquely well suited abstractions for developers who have umpteen workflows and use cases of significant complexity. However observing how huge an improvement an iPad is for my joe-sixpack relatives, I think it's worth exploring the idea of how far can iOS can be taken by power users. I certainly think it could feasibly meet the needs of specific creative professionals like writers, designers or video editors.

>Why? There's never a convincing argument why I would want to do this.

Lighter. Longer lasting battery. Dead easy app management. No "blue screens". Apps designed for direct manipulation. No configuration and maintenance hassle or sys-adminy stuff. Works great on a desk, on your lap, on a sofa, on the bed.

But best of all: if you're a writer/journalist/etc, and mostly do writing, web, email, reading, IM, etc, it does all you need, and nothing you don't.

Any particular sign that he's being deceptive, besides "that wont work for my workload"?

>but I really don't like 'lets pretend iPad can replace proper computer' approach.

Isn't that irrelevant personal preference?

I like that approach, and it could have totally replaced "proper computer" for me (which it does) on trips and elsewhere away from work, if I wasn't also a programmer.

Key word is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance

There is at least 80% chance that author decieves himself too.

See file management and hardware sections and it should be obvious. In hardware section he buys razer keyboard case just to be able to use iPad more comfortably. See pictures there, if we don't know it is iPad it really looks like a proper laptop.

Jumping trough hoops to make something work does not constitute 'iPad Pro is, by far, the best computer I've ever owned'.

>See file management and hardware sections and it should be obvious. In hardware section he buys razer keyboard case just to be able to use iPad more comfortably.

So? The idea behind using the iPad as your main computer is not "touch interaction for everything" but "I like the computing model" (self-contained apps that don't interact through a filesystem, no administration, etc).

Obviously you can (and should) still use a keyboard for writing longer texts, a stylus for drawing, etc.

The article is interesting, I learnt about a few apps that could be valuable to me.

But what I found most worrying was the lack of acknowledgement that exclusively using cloud storage has caviates associated with it. Are we really so comfortable with, unencrypted, cloud storage now that we don't even mention the potential for warrentlsss access and other abuses?

Unencrypted?

Well, cloud provider has the decryption key

Yes, most people are that comfortable with unencrypted storage. But I expect the most interesting push back will not come from a tiny fraction of the population who care about such things, but from strict rules in governments and large organizations that prohibit storing classified or confidential data in unencrypted cloud storage. Either we'll get encryption as a normal feature, or private clouds.

(also sp. caveats, warrantless)

This is a bit off base.

For companies, they have data loss prevention policies in work-enabled devices, constraining work data to only be possible to download to work-approved (usually from their MDM provider) applications, not possible to export and able to be remote wiped from the device by the company at any point they chose.

For government, storing classified information in the cloud is already a major violation. Even data designated as FOUO requires special considerations (Although AWS GovCloud is a good solution for serving such needs). In a sense, your "private clouds" estimate is already the path that has been taken, as there are many frameworks and requirements that have been created by gov over the past few years in terms of storing certain types of information. Trying to force all cloud providers to abide by them seems like it would be a losing battle as well, and would not be taken lightly by many.

> Are we really so comfortable with, unencrypted, cloud storage now that we don't even mention the potential for warrentlsss access and other abuses?

It is worth noting that iCloud allows encryption of your data using a passphrase (Usually the device passphrase but I believe you can set a custom one, if you prefer).

As of December 2016, I believe you are, generally speaking, incorrect. iCloud data is encrypted in transit and at rest, but only iCloud Keychain is encrypted "in such a way that Apple cannot read or access" it.[1] For all other data stored in iCloud, Apple both provides and retains access to the encryption keys. Note that this includes iCloud backups you make of your iMessages; however, if you do not back up your iMessage content to iCloud, then technically speaking your iMessages are not part of your iCloud footprint and Apple does not have access to that content.[ibid]

Apple's law enforcement guidelines[2] provide more detail about what Apple effectively has access to and can/will provide upon presentation of a warrant.

(As of iOS 9.3 and macOS 10.11.4, it appears that notes that you explicitly password-protect in the Notes app are also encrypted with a user-supplied key to which Apple has no access. They don't explicitly mention this functionality in [1] or [2], but they do imply that this is the case in [3].)

There have been rumblings [4] since the San Bernardino case that Apple is considering providing what you describe, so that users can provide their own encryption keys for their iCloud content and backups, such that Apple no longer has access to the plaintext. However, Apple has not implemented this functionality yet, and I haven't heard anything about it since the FBI dropped its case against Apple in this matter.

[1] http://www.apple.com/privacy/approach-to-privacy/

[2] https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/law-enforcement-guidelin...

[3] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205794#forgot_password

[4] [paywall] http://www.wsj.com/articles/in-beefing-up-icloud-security-ap...

>Are we really so comfortable with, unencrypted, cloud storage now that we don't even mention the potential for warrentlsss access and other abuses?

Most people use the same cloud storage on their desktop or phone anyway too.

I unsuccessfully tried using the iPad as a full-fledged computer for two months. It did not work out. Much of the web still assumes that you're using a mouse. You don't realize this until you try browsing the web with the iPad. Also, using SSH,even with Panic, was not as seamless as it seemed. There was much screen refreshing. I really missed having a mouse.

>> Much of the web still assumes that you're using a mouse.

Not everything is mobile friendly yet, but do you really meet many mobile unfriendly web sites?

Most problems I have on phone/tablet are company internal products, where they literally designed the UI before the iPhone existed.

I haven't tried those 2-apps-on-the-screen things with iPad Pro. Maybe it works well enough so I could work. Maybe.

There are many, many subtle web interactions that happen on ':hover' when you are browsing the web. It can make new websites difficult to manage whenever you aren't quite sure what to do.

Of course. But my point was that most of the modern web seems to be mobile friendly or even "mobile first". (And hence not depend on effects being able to use effects like that).

I've never had an issue with hover interactions personally, but perhaps you use some website I don't visit. Hover text is available by long tapping, and every hover action I've ever come across works as expected simply by tapping on it. Sounds like there's something out there you use that needs a design update.

You can get a USB mouse, can't you?

iOS has no cursor. I suppose a mouse might be viable for remote desktop environments, but there's nothing to move with a mouse in the OS itself.

iOS doesn't have a mouse driver, so no, unfortunately :(

Panic's Prompt is slick, but Blink Shell has mosh built in, making it a far superior terminal for iOS.

I don't want to sound arrogant, but for everyone who used a ridiculously overpowered computer - 90% of people (?) - for surfing and using Word, yes the iPad Pro is fine - or even overpowered.

Using it to develop Python looks intersting, I'd like to know more about what he does (I assume Python works fine, Webpack compile? How is the 'drive'?)

I agree. It would be fine for the vast majority of people, but I can't ever see myself actually writing code on an iPad.

I write code on my on a daily basis. Coda, Swift Playgrounds, or Coda as my ssh client into a linux server and then emacs on the server. As a lightweight LTE capable environment, it's pretty amazing. It entirely depends on what you code but for web application or iOS dev it's pretty damn capable.

Same. While it's near impossible these days to get many things done without an internet connection I usually like to have a full stack on localhost for convenience. I'm curious how anyone might meaningfully develop using the iPad Pro.

While I am not committed to it yet, I have found it pretty easy to move a lot of my development work to my iPad Air 2. Pythonista, Working Copy, and Textastic cover local dev/testing cycle, Blink lets me connect in to a mosh session on a cloud dev server, and with Screens I can VNC to my laptop sitting on my desk, etc. I still prefer my MBA for dedicated coding sessions, but I have been pleasantly surprised by how far you can get with just a tablet and bluetooth keyboard or keyboard case for the tablet.

I use Panic Software's Coda: https://panic.com/coda/

That looks good. I use their SSH app a lot, and having an integrated coding editor looks good. I wish they would support Google cloud storage in addition to S3, but I could work around that.

Two things the iPad Pro completely replaced for me:

- TV - Wacom Tablet

For most people it is a 100% replacement for everything they do on a computer, if they get an external keyboard.

Prior to the iPad Pro, I used my iPad exclusively for a number of months thanks to remoting in to my desktop. It slowed me down a bit, but it wasn't bad and I got a lot of work done during that time.

Did you mount it when using as a TV? That could be a good solution for me.

If you're looking for an iPad mount, I recommend the Levo brand tablet floor stand. Very stable, very flexible, and can hold a 12.9" iPad Pro inside a rugged case no problem.

The iPad is very overpowerd for what most people want to do. The hardware is amazing, it's the software that's the problem.

I've been trying to replace most of my daily (chrome-based) browser tasks from my macbook air to an ipad pro 12" for the past 2 weeks. Trying to do anything reasonable on safari/chrome for iOS is a pain in the ass, and is nowhere near desktop replacement level. I really wish it was, and I use "request desktop version" often, but even then so many sites are so broken. Safari mobile is just not ready for this "serious" work. We need a desktop-level browser on iOS.

I'm genuinely curious as I've seen a few people say it but I've literally never experienced an issue that couldn't be solved by requesting the desktop version. Could you give an example of a broken site so I can check it out?

Upwork has been the biggest pain point for me so far. Try scrolling in the messages pages, for example. Also the padding/margins are totally wack so the text is glued up against the sides of the pages. Also enjoy the capcha every few minutes.

Another site is Facebook (non-mobile site). Not a wonderful experience.

Another one is my own little project, Amtrak.io. On my 13" macbook air the top 4 KPI boxes are in a row, but on the 12" ipad they are not, even though the resolutions are nearly the same.

It seems to be sites who use media queries, as I read that ios safari reports to the DOM that's its physical screen size is actually actual-screen-size/2 which is silly and annoying.

It's not a real computer for me unless I can write and run my own software on it.

But you can write and run your own software on iOS platform.

Are you referring to non-published (not in the store) software? You can use TestFlight to run software on your own devise, without releasing, and without any modifications to the OS.

ok then the iPad Pro qualifies. Continous, Swift playgrounds, python3 and a number of other apps allow you write and run code on the device.

You still can't build the kernel yourself.

Which rules out Macs or Windows as "real computers" for you, then?

People were doing this with an iPad and the first SSH clients for iOS but it never caught on beyond "hey look at me"

Any hard numbers about this "never caught up"?

I'm currently debating to use an iPad Pro for my main workflow. This article is 12 pages long. Lots of solid perspectives. I'm surprised I haven't read more articles like this yet.

I'm a math student. I hate the sheer volume of paper I have to lug around. I know the iPad won't replace 100% of my activities as a college student and as an autodidact but I have a sneaking suspicion that the iPad Pro is a solid device, localized control and overall a replacement of my laptop (primary computer) for 95% of activities.

P.S. I went to check out a Microsoft Surface, a family member got one for xmas last year and she loves it. It crashed on me within 1 minute, namely OneNote, which would be apart of my primary workflow. iPad Pro never crashed and had great response times.

That's interesting to hear, because I've been using a Surface Pro for the last year and never had a similar issue. OneNote (when I use it) has generally been pretty solid sans some weird account issues that didn't take long to solve. I'd never give up my full computer for a tablet to do actual work. It has the flexibility that I can use all the normal dev tools, and then switch over to Gamemaker, etc. I honestly think using an iPad for real development is basically limited to web stuff, because you can't access Xcode to make an iOS app, or Qt for a desktop application, or even Gamemaker/unity for games. It's a "limited" tool. Don't let that single crash taint the surface line of products, because they are solid. A friend even decided to get one over Black Friday and is loving being able to write code again, as his desktop is hooked into a tv for games/entertainment.

When I read comments like yours I can't help but feel as if your mind was made up before you gave the device a fair shot. Despite your singular negative experience, even you must be able to concede that it was most likely an atypical issue.

I've had iPad applications crash on me numerous times - but I still think they're great, largely stable devices.

Well, I didn't want to write a book of reasons but one of my math professors avidly uses it and it crashes EVERY SINGLE class, many times it crashed at least two times in a 3 hour class. The max was about 7.

The problem with anecdotes is that they're easily refuted. For example, I know of someone who uses a Surface as their full time development machine and I've never seen it crash on him...ever.

Just be careful dismissing products due to a singular negative narrative that you've created.

I doubt 'ever'. It doesn't matter what OS the person is using, there will be crashes. It also crashes on my sister-in-law. I'd say you are just as guilty saying 'problem with anecdotes is that they're easily refuted'.

I'm not a blind Apple user. The recent MBP changes has me strongly looking for an alternative. I didn't make up my mind. I went out of my way to go to a Msft store and give them a shot. Nope, it failed. At the end of the day, the consumer most likely makes a decision based on anecdotes. There is no 'scientific standard' to 'should I buy a Surface or iPad'. There isn't. Being critical of my opinion is a sad thing. As, all I'm doing is sharing my experience and your attempts to 'refute' my perspective only help refute yours.

I'd encourage you to consider that I'm trying to help people with my experience. You sharing someone else's experience to 'correct' me is mean-spirited. Namely because your desire to correct and not inform.

You seem to have taken offense at what I was saying. I'll just say that wasn't my intent and leave it at that.

Well, you sounded critical namely due to assuming/thinking I had only one experience, then trying to deconstruct how I was 'wrong'. Instead of maybe saying, 'I hope you aren't basing your decision on only one experience. As I had problems with the iPad crashing on me but I still think it's a solid device'.

How you approach saying something matters more than what you actually say, when dealing with humans. It's something that I'm learning as I've gotten older and I am not an expert.

I use my ipad v1 constantly. I have about ~100+ great engineering and mathematics books that I couldn't carry and consume otherwise.

The only draw back for me is that I haven't found a solid journaling app that I trust, so I still carry a paper journal.

I agree with you there. I only use viJournal Lite on my MBP. Finding a replacement has been difficult.

YMMV, but OneNote makes me nervous. I briefly played with it on OSX, and didn't see a good way to get notes out of it (e.g. for backup, recovery/usage in absence of OneNote). That is one thing that Evernote gets right IMO - the local store is just a bunch of html files + images, one directory per note.

For math - it's been over a decade, but I think I'd need a big device (ipad pro 12.9) and a pen. I'd want to be able to get a full page of notes on screen at once. That said, I'd be tempted. I've scanned my old notes for posterity and to save space, but it would have been nice to just capture them in digital form in the first place.

I'd also want a TeX stack on the device (editor+preview), but I'd write that if I had to. (I did pure plain TeX back in the day.)

OneNote files are stored in the OneDrive file sync service by default (and I assume has the same data hiarangees), but you can save them locally if you'd like.

I take a different approach. I use a MacBook for software development and using OmniGraffle for creating technical diagrams for my books. Most everything else I do on an iPad Pro. I don't mind having two work devices, especially given that I also have several Linux laptops and a few old Mac laptops.

If I were ever to travel for a year, then I could live with just an iPad Pro (I use Prompt for multiple SSH shells, so I can program on an iPad), but for regular life and work, having two devices makes sense.

I am a big fan of iPads, the large Pro in particular, which I use every day. But I don't think it is quite ready for being the only computer, except in a few select use cases.

This sounds like a nightmare.

It took me a while to go through his entire 12 pages but here is a brief list of the apps/accessories he speaks about:

*Note: there are duplicate apps for similar situations (i.e. three writing apps) but that's because he was switching between them for different uses.

- Readdle’s Document app - ‘best file manager’

- workflow app - like IFFTT

- iA Writer - writing app ($3.99, short writing)

- Working Copy Enterprise ($14.99) - collab writing

- Twelve South’s ParcSlope ($49.99 on Amazon)

- Razer Keyboard Case for iPad Pro ($169.99 on amazon)

- Anker PowerCore 20000 Battery ($45 on amazon)

- Apple 29W USB-C Charger

- Sennheiser Momentum 2.0 Wireless (headphones)

- SteelSeries Nimbus Controller

- Tom Bihn Daylight Briefcase

- Spotify and Apple Music

- Synology NAS - DS214play (for home server/media center)

    - DS Get, DS File, DS Video

    - QuickConnect feature with Synology (allows access to home server, in non-home settings)

- Infuse Pro 5 ($12.99, for not needing to convert media files)

- Plex (free - video streaming)

- Provenance (github - old games emulator for iOS)

    - https://github.com/jasarien/Provenance/wiki/Building-Provenance

- PlayMira ($9.99 - ps4 game streaming)

- Timepage for iPad (6.99 - calendar)

- Airmail ($4.99 - mail account)

- Sanebox ($ - email management assist)

- Pixelmator ($4.99 - edit images)

- Launcher with Notication Center Widges by Cromulent Labs (free - url automation)

    - https://www.macstories.net/reviews/with-launcher-2-0-im-rethinking-my-notification-center-widgets/

- Inoreader (free - rss feed reader)

- Fiery Feeds Premium (9.99 - rss feed reader)

- Copied (free - clipboard manager)

- Bear ($4.99 - notes replacement)

    - https://www.macstories.net/stories/why-im-considering-bear-as-a-notes-app-replacement/

- Ulysses ($24.99 - text document writing, zen app, short writing)

- Pinnacle Studio Pro ($12.99 - video editing)

- VideoGrade ($5.99 - color editor of videos)

- DEVONthink To Go ($14.99 - doc and info management, search function is high value)

- iThoughts ($11.99 - mindmap)

- Scrivener - ($19.99 - writing, long form writing)

- Ferrite Recording Studio (free, voice memo with editing)

- SanDisk iXpand Flash Drive (SDIX30C-064G-GN6NN) (64 gb = $49.99)

- Annotable (free, image annotation)

He writes about a lot of apps. Here is a list of it all (warning all of his stuff is affiliate links) https://www.macstories.net/stories/one-year-of-ipad-pro/12/#...

I can only think he is joking when he says he develops software using Python. Yes, you can connect to a remote computer via SSH or use a an unofficial (and non-free) Python port. Noawadays developing software also involves using IDEs... just in case the author forgot that part.

> Noawadays developing software also involves using IDEs

Assuming your definition of IDE is limited to GUI applications, and assuming you speak for everyone. Since neither is true, developing code on the terminal on a remote server is very possible and even practical.

> and assuming you speak for everyone.

The author is the one who speaks for everyone. I would like to use Xcode or Atom/Visual Studio Code.

And... by definition when you work on a remote server you are not developing on the iPad!

> The author is the one who speaks for everyone.

No, he doesn't. He speaks of his own experiences.

In fact, he states as much very clearly in the introduction: "The Mac and the iPad can coexist in a market where customers believe one is superior to the other. I prefer working on the iPad; others like their Macs more. And that's fine[...]".

> He speaks of his own experiences.

His experiences only work for a few people. For example, Node.js is one the top programming languages being used now, how do you develop with Node.js in the iPad Pro? Java? C/C++? Go?

The same way he did Python, in a console. The only languages which may be a challenge to program in that fashion would be Swift, Objective C, and C# - because they are so tied to MacOS and Windows respectively.

A well set up Vim or Emacs is perfectly capable of writing Node.js, Java, C (side note - hilarious that you tried to use this as an example, given that C and C++ are probably written by a majority of developers in the console) and Go.

Developing using a remote computer is not developing in the iPad itself.

The point is that it's an equivalent workflow. It doesn't make the process of developing worse if you're used to those tools so why does it matter if it's 100% local?

We can assume if it's working for them then network connectivity isn't an issue (which is isn't for most of us, most of the time).

Since we're talking about the feasibility of using an iPad for software development, this seems like irrelevant semantics.

> For example, Node.js is one the top programming languages being used now

Node.js is not a programming language. It's a framework. I currently develop Node.js for work, and I always SSH into a remote machine to run tests and do development work. Developing Javascript, C, Go, and Java over a ssh connection is doable, one of the best options in the case of C and Javascript.

>And... by definition when you work on a remote server you are not developing on the iPad!

The same way I'm not developing on my laptop either, since I use a remote build server?

Pythonista, Working Copy, Textastic. Now I have local python environment, git integration, and a fairly decent editor. Of course, if I was a complete noob I might need a full-blown IDE but it has been quite a while since I needed training wheels when writing code.

I want to develop in Haskell... give me an option... I can show you a lot of programming languages not available on the iPad.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/haskell-programming-language...

Not my favorite app but proves it's possible. also: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/raskell/id783015132?mt=8

Again not great yet because no one has put in the work to make a great version yet but it's complete possible.

>I want to develop in Haskell...

Professionally? Then you are a bigger outlier than "programmer not using IDE" is.

That's funny I thought I made my living developing software and I rarely launch an IDE, unless you mean Emacs or Atom or VS Code or Coda on the iPad Pro.

>Noawadays developing software also involves using IDEs... just in case the author forgot that part.

It might for you. There are tons of professional programmers, many who run circles around you and me, that don't use IDEs, but Vim, Emacs and the like.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com