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Comment by swiley | Hacker News Reader

If you're not going to do anything where performance matters why pay a premium for it?

Video and photo editing are common iPad Pro use cases where performance matters.

Haven't you heard? Programming is the only "pro" or performance-intensive thing that exists.

I don't even understand why programmers are always so up in arms about devices like the iPad. Why on earth does one want to program on a handheld touchscreen device anyway? I have zero expectations for that, much like I have zero expectations for the laptop I do program on to be a good drawing device.

I don't get the huge blind spot there, either, and it's pervasive on here every time the iPad comes up.

"I can't boot an OpenBSD VM on it so it must only be for watching YouTube, for sheeple consumers, not godlike 'creators' like me".

Meanwhile it's plainly great for all kinds of creation-oriented activities, especially where the real-world meets the digital. The sensors are great. Pencil is great. It's a really good companion-tool for all kinds of real-world work, better than a laptop (though actually iPhones often beat both iPads and "real" computers, in that regard, just because of the form factor) Plus it's got some damn good, often-interactive educational apps, some of which work better on a tablet than they would anywhere else. Much the hell better for several of those things than any laptop running a "real OS for Serious Work".

But no, it's just a Netflix console for drooling morons, because you can't easily HAX0R it to replace the lock screen with a port of DOOM, since if you can't do that then it must not be any use for creating things. Give me a break.

The whole "this device isn't meant for programmers" argument is a red herring. I don't like how the discussion ultimately boils down to complete control over the OS. That's not going happen, and likely requires a different mental model around OS abstractions, so we should put that aside.

My original point was that productivity apps, whether its photo/video/audio editing, word processing, or 3D modeling, all categorically benefit from features like better file management, IPC, background processing, working with external displays, easier keyboard/trackpad navigation, etc...

I saw some things in the presentation around external storage and thunderbolt devices which look like steps in the right direction, but the OS is really not doing it any favors. I would guess that the iPad is successful among this demographic despite iPadOS, not because of it.

Amen.

Don't forget only UNIX guys are programmers, the rest of us using XCode and similar tooling are just muggles.

Well yeah, you are. We real programmers program by fabricating our own NMOS transistors and wiring them together by hand.

I always assumed that safari/youtube/netflix were the common use cases. Do numerically many people actually video/photo editing on these devices to make it "common"?

I make a (good) living working as an iOS developer on the video editing app (LumaFusion) shown several times in today's event. We have a very solid userbase, including plenty of people using it for professional work. Apple chose to use the app as a featured example in marketing the new iPad. To me, that's all evidence that video/photo editing is indeed a "common" use case for these devices.

Anecdotally, these days my wife (an artist) does digital painting and photo editing exclusively on her iPad Pro because she prefers the software available there combined with the Apple pencil.

Yes, absolutely. In photography circles the iPad Pro is regarded as an amazing device that offers performance and color quality that you won't be able to achieve even with expensive desktop monitors. Also, for the professional photographer, whose average rig is probably worth at least 20 to 50k depending on what they do, a 2000$ tablet with these characteristics is a steal.

Well, now, that's interesting. I legitimately did not know that, even though I own three Blackmagic PCC4k video cameras and take quite an interest in 'playback technology', whether audio or imagery. I do know that my horrifyingly over-expensive iMac Pro has a good screen, but not Pro Display XDR good. I'd assumed the iPads were basically consumer grade.

So the iPad Pro actually does make sense for color timing and proofs and working in DaVinci Resolve etc? If the display is relevant for this, damn straight giving it a good CPU is going to matter.

People are going to be doing serious video color correction work on these things. I certainly won't… but it's going to start looking very compelling for that audience.

The screen is honestly amazing. Puts everything else in its field (and most pc / laptop monitors) to shame.

That was before the M1 laptops. I would say that most desktop users would be better served keeping their workflow than moving to a tablet workflow.

I do all my audio editing on the iPad. And I generate artwork (generally by mangling stock photos) on there. I also do a little bit of video editing but not enough to count it as a common use case.

It has a great screen, it's very fast, it has built in 4G and the single tasking nature also makes it my favourite tool for writing (including coding, if I don't have to do UI work as well).

For me, it's definitely a creation device and one of my favourite computers of all time.

It's also infuriating because it could do so much more - but as soon as it starts multi-tasking properly it will lose some of its strengths. Same goes for the magic keyboard - I use it a lot but the utility of it has to be balanced by the fact that it turns it into a laptop, which is something it's not.

As far as I can tell, those would better describe the use cases for the plain old iPad, whereas the iPad Pro is meant to be used for more content creation in addition to those things.

I've been a little confused about Apple's product lineup the last decade; does anybody else miss the foursquare grid of consumer/pro and desktop/portable?

You are not alone. :)

Do you really think apple would be making pro level devices for that exact purpose if people werent?

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