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Comment by robotmay | Hacker News Reader

I've seen this opinion quite a lot recently, and I don't really understand - why do you want the iPad to be a Mac?

For me the iPad Pro is a great creative device that is surprisingly capable in a variety of other ways. I use mine for programming with ease but my workflow of using Vim over mosh/tmux in blink.sh supports that. If I was looking for a portable programming machine I'd just buy a MBA I guess.

I think the iPad Pro is great at what it does. It's an excellent portable creative device that can also be used casually. Not everything needs to be targeted towards every use-case.

FWIW I like what I've read of iPad OS 15 so far. The multitasking changes should improve things.

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Why does software engineering never get included in the “creative” category?

I would love, for my personal use, to replace my MBP with an iPad but it just won’t be possible until there is some method for executing arbitrary code, which I see as a requirement for software engineering. Even if they just made Virtualization.framework available so you could spin up a Linux VM so things were totally sandboxed, I would be able to actually use the thing as a computer.

The reason for preferring this over a MBP comes down to several reasons: touch, form factor, pencil support and honest for “everyday” use, iPadOS is better than macOS.

Speaking of, Microsoft, surprisingly, already supports WSL on Windows on ARM: https://www.thomasmaurer.ch/2019/12/how-to-install-wsl-2-on-...

And the Linux distros available there are true ARM64.

> Why does software engineering never get included in the “creative” category?

Well, it's not high-status enough. Creatives have art gallery showings and groupies and die of drug overdoses on their private planes. No software engineer has ever done this.

I'm in a similar position, and I do use a Mac instead (because the developer tools I rely on won't run on an iPad). I guess the root issue is I do like the touch/pen interface for creative apps (instead of a desktop interface), just not enough to justify buying / carrying around / keeping in sync a third device in addition to a laptop and a phone.

But the iPad hardware is more than fast enough for my development tasks, and the screen size is large enough (and at home I use an external monitor anyway).

So the ideal device I'd like to buy would basically be the iPad hardware with Mac software capabilities. Obviously the current iPad works for a lot of people, so it would be fine if this was separate product. But it's a bit disappointing that it doesn't exist at all since it seems like it would be a (relatively) small amount of work for a company like Apple now that iPad/Mac hardware is very similar and Macs can run iPad apps.

What stops the iPad from being able to do these things? What actual restriction is there?

Personally, I’d like to run a processing JavaScript server with a Typescript compiler.

Product positioning and target market.

There is a reason why Apple is a 2 trillion company, the best in consumer satisfaction and made technology easy and accessible to toddlers and grandparents worldwide.

It never amazes me that HN crowd doesn’t understand this and keeps moaning that the latest iPad doesn’t run Kubernetes. Seriously?!

> the best in consumer satisfaction

I can see many non-satisfied customers in this comment section, are their opinions invalid? It amazes me that there's a whole crowd on HN ready to make excuses in every thread for a 2 trillion company, as if they haven't got the resources.

I don't see so many people running to apologise and do PR for free for Microsoft or Google.

I remember when Apple treated developers like first class citizens, now they see them as a cost center that cost them 70% of App Store revenue.

> I can see many non-satisfied customers in this comment section

It's called a biased sample and has nothing to do with a genuine, general population customer satisfaction.

What makes it more biased is people are complaining about a product that is _NOT_ made for them.

> It amazes me that there's a whole crowd on HN ready to make excuses

(－‸ლ)

I have these discussions every year when a new iPadOS/iPad comes out [1], people complaining they can't run Kubernetes or do troubleshooting with MAC address access on an iPad.

My point is that in marketing (what Apple is genius at), there are such things as product positioning and target market.

Technical crowd often forgets this, and as per comments here, they'd be happy to ram iPad with never ending list of features.

iPad is not made for them. Macs are. Want to get a portable Docker developer machine? Macbook Air is cheaper and lighter than a 12.9 iPad Pro + keyboard.

I'm not making excuses for them, I understand Apple's positioning, and I understand what they're doing from marketing/business point of view.

[1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22616352

A pencil would be pretty ridiculous for the iPad, after all artists are not Apple's target group. Oh wait, we have have one, and suddenly the iPad is one of the best devices for artists. For developers it's even easier, because the hardware is already there. Why shouldn't I be able to run Kubernetes? Isn't the iPad Pro the "fastest iPad ever made"? I have the device, now let me use it. Fun fact: other iPad users will not be affected by my ability to run Kubernetes or Docker or whatever.

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