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Comment by aurareturn | Hacker News Reader

I'm with you. I think HN (and conversational internet) disproportionally contains more laptop people than the public.

A lot of of the younger generation does all their work on their phone and tablet and does not have a computer.

Yeah, apparently some people book flights from their phones!? Nah man, that's a laptop activity. I'd never spend more than a couple hundred dollars on my phone. Haha

Majority of people don’t know what programming is and do shitton of manual things that can be automated by a simple bash/Python script, so what?

So, the product may not fit your use case or preference. That's ok. Others love it. That's also ok.

What's silly is thinking that a device that makes everyone happy is somehow trivial, or that a device intentionally made with a specific type of interface is bad because of that intent. If things were as bad or as trivial as some people suggest, someone else would have made a successful competing product by now, rather than the string failures across the industry, from those who have tried.

what you are describing is a certainly some kind of professional but we should look from a higher vantage point. A professional in any field will ultimately want to customize their tool or make their own tools and that is not possible with ipads or even really software on ipads. It is a massive step backwards to sit in a walled, proprietary garden and claim that these people are productive professionals as if they are comparable to the previous generation of professionals. They may be in some sense but from a more historical, higher viewpoint they all seem herded into tightly controlled, corporate tools that will be taken from them whenever it is convenient for someone else. Ipad users are effectively like vmware users who are just waiting for a Broadcom moment. The price hike will always come eventually, the support will always drop at some point. It is all borrowed time, tools someone else controls and makes. It might be necessary in a world where we all need to make money but to positively support it is something else entirely.

> A professional in any field will ultimately want to customize their tool or make their own tools

I suspect you’re a programmer. This is not the perspective or reality of most professional users. Most professional apps are not, themselves, customizable. Most professional users do not make their own tools, or want to. If you’re a programmer, you’ll understand this, because that’s why you’re employed: they want you to do it.

Sorry to be pedantic, but I feel that the distinction is important, that seems more like a UX than a programming job. Too often, UX, UI, coding, documentation, etc. are thrown together, viewed as tasks that can be handled by the same people interchangeably and it rarely yields great results, in part because programmers often start out with expectations that can differ from the vast majority of users.

Also, "most" and "any" aren't all too helpful in this discussion (not directed at anyone in particular, these can be read in comments throughout this thread) because there are going to be countless examples in either direction, but from my limited experience, I have seen professionals in various spaces, some which very much prefer a default workflow and others that heavily customize. I know talented professional programmers doing great work in the out-of-the-box setup of VSCode combined with GitHub Desktop, etc. but also have seen graphic designers, video editors, and even people focused purely on writing text that have created immensely impressive workflows, stringing macros together and relying heavily on templates and their preferred folder structures. Even on iPad OS, people can have their custom-tailored workflow regarding file placement, syncing with cloud storage, etc., just in a restricted manner and for what it's worth, I sometimes prefer using Alight Motion for certain video editing tasks on my smartphone over grabbing my laptop.

I have seen and feel strongly that any professional from any field can have a customized workflow and can benefit from the ability to customize their toolset, even those outside programming, but I also feel equally strongly that sane defaults must remain and the "iPad way of doing things", as much as I in my ancient mid-twenties will never fully adapt to it, must remain for people who prefer and thrief in that environment.

Define most professional apps.

A lot of professional applications include some form of scripting engine.

Sure, which most professionals don't use. If you think the average professional can program, or use scripting engines, it's because you're a HN user, and probably a programmer, not an average professional, and less likely one that uses an iPad.

But, there's nothing technically stopping an app developer from implementing any of this, including desktop level apps. Compute, keyboard/mouse, and stylus is ready. I think the minuscule market that would serve is what's stopping them.

It has nothing to do with programming, I know mechanics who complain about car models where the manuals costs massive amounts of money if they are even allowed to get it at all and it takes weeks to order them. This should be a familiar story in every field. Do artists not have ateliers full of custom brushes, things they found work for them and they customized? Not to mention that artists these days are Maya, Autodesk and Photoshop users. Is that pen really powerful enough? Because a pen is really close to a mouse pointer anyway, so why even stick to an ipad then, you can simple buy a pen and board for the desktop computer. This is not about whether I am a programmer or not, this is about why some praise and use Apple devices for professionals even though they are not the best choice.

> A professional in any field will ultimately want to customize their tool or make their own tools and that is not possible with ipads or even really software on iPads.

I was responding to this main point.

Every professional drawing app, on the iPad, allows you to make your own brushes. There's no limitation there. That's just a fundamental requirement of a drawing app. They're not customizing the workflow or tool/apps itself, which is what I thought you were referring to.

> make their own tools

This requires programming, does it not? Do you have some examples?

> why some praise and use Apple devices for professionals even though they are not the best choice.

Especially for drawing, I think it would be best to ask the professionals why they chose a ~1lb iPad in their backpack with a pixel perfect stylus, over a desktop computer and mouse. The answers might surprise you.

Just because people love it, doesn’t mean that it can’t be better. It also doesn’t mean that current way of doing things is efficient.

> What's silly is thinking that a device that makes everyone happy is somehow trivial, or that a device intentionally made with a specific type of interface is bad because of that intent.

Add a proper native terminal, proper virtualization framework á la what we have on Mac, side loading and third party browser support with plugins and you’ll shut up 99% of complaining users here.

> If things were as bad or as trivial as some people suggest, someone else would have made a successful competing product by now, rather than the string failures across the industry, from those who have tried.

Right, let me use my couple billion change in R&D to create iPad compatible system with all that I’ve mentioned before.

> Just because people love it, doesn’t mean that it can’t be better.

Better for who ? They sell like hot cakes, 50+ millions of them per year

According to google there are 25m software devs in the world, even if half (extremely generous) of them would buy a new ipad every single year (extremely generous) if they implemented what you ask it isn't going to change much for apple, ipads are like 10% of their revenues. So at best we're talking of 3% revenue increase

> 99% of complaining users here.

99% of not much is nothing for apple, they're already printing money too fast to know what to do with it

If all you care about is revenue - sure, don’t see any point arguing with you. It’ll end with “it’s not going to yield additional revenue”.

If those younger folks are as the parent says in the creative sector.

iPad has been a workflow gamechanger for folks who use photoshop etc but users are still prevented from coding on it.

It's actually come a long way. The workflow is still… sub-optimal, but there are some really nice terminal apps (LaTerminal, Prompt, ShellFish, iSH) which are functional too. Working Copy is pretty dope for working with git once you get you adapt to it.

I do most of my dev on a Pi5 now, so actually working on the iPad is not that difficult.

If they ever release Xcode for iPadOS that would be a true gamechanger.

"Prevented from coding" is just not true. There are many python IDEs, Swift Playgrounds, etc. Pythonista, and the like, are neat because you get full access to all the iPhone sensors.

And maybe that's fine? Look at it from the opposite side. All those artists complaining about how terrible macbooks are because you can't draw on them.

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