Ask HN: Interesting (offline) iPad apps for hackers? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Interesting (offline) iPad apps for hackers?

18 pointsssamuli15 comments

Going to travel away for a 2½ weeks soon, and I'm going to take only an iPad with me for my basic computer needs (+ an android phone). But what if I get an itch to hack something? Any suggestions on apps that I can get my daily fix of hacker/geek life with?

One option I've been thinking about is setting up some kind of minimal Linux dev environment on the Android phone and SSH'ing in from iPad to get a better terminal/keyboard than I would have on the phone.

Another option would be to just SSH to my home box and do whatever I usually do on it, but it is probable that there's no internet connectivity where I'm going, or it will be painfully slow.

Third option of course would be to force myself to do something else :)

Maybe HN has some other options or suggestions?

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Pro-tip: Forget about an iphone app -- get out and enjoy your life while you're traveling!

I know, I will. But just in case! :)

My experience with "just in case" things I take on trips is that they become a distraction. The best trip I ever had was one in October where we went to a hotel on a remote island without any internet and absolutely no phone reception.

It's called relaxation apparently. I liked it.

We had almost the same experience month ago, when we traveled to Cape Verde. No internet and calls were so expensive that I only did one phone call during the trip. It really was refreshing!

Not actually coding, but I did read that Apple have just released all their iOS / Objective-C books for free on iBooks.

jsanywhere is pretty good: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/javascript-anywhere/id3634522...

It looks good on the store, but instantly crashes on every attempt to create a project on my iPad.

Strange - I've been using it for awhile on my iPad with no issues, perhaps its only certain iOS versions?

* Jailbreak your ipad (be careful with iOS4), install OpenSSH through Cydia and connect to localhost with iSSH. There are for example apache, vi, ruby, python, grep and awk. Can that scratch your itch? * Not really hacking but you can install Frotz for text adventuring in interactive fiction. * Buy an apple bluetooth keyboard and connect it to Android or the iPad for easier typing.

This is something that I've already tried, I mean using iSSH to connect to localhost running OpenSSH, but in the default system there's really nothing to play with. And I haven't found how and from where to install any UNIX-utilities, editors or applications for iPad. Any pointers on where to get these?

Hmm...lacking internet connectivity is a pain. I love using zingersoft iSSH and the Apple wireless keyboard ($69) -- I connect to my remote Linux servers and am coding in Python right away.

You can actually jailbreak the iPad and have a fully functioning unix environment there.

Python scripting environment on the Android phone isn't half bad.

If you like hacking in Lua, I've been enjoying Luna. It's a little IDE with an embedded Lua interpreter. The interface is weird but it works.

Thanks! Will have to check that out.

This is one of the rare cases where bringing a netbook is a better idea than an iPad.

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