Sorry, iPads | Hacker News Reader

Sorry, iPads

therectangle.substack.com

36 pointsHAARP49 comments

I would love to target iOS with all kinds of hobby software, but actually developing on that platform is such a fucking miserable experience that I avoid it at all costs. I really cannot emphasize enough how unpleasant it is to deal with limited number of installs, expiring apps, and the lack of support for OpenGL. The people calling the shots over there are truly unrepentant assholes.

One thing that discouraged me from tablets was how fast they went deprecated. I bought an iPad and a Samsung Galaxy Note around 2012. The Samsung Galaxy stopped having updates about 2 years after I bought it, and the iPad, although it still runs, it stopped receiving updates around iOS 9 and its only current use is as PDF viewer (not even Kindle works in it). A Lenovo Thinkpad I bought from that same year is still up and running and very useful whenever I need it.

The software support for iPads have been excellent imo, especially compared to competition.

If you bought an iPad in 2012, it should have received software updates until 2019, and all iPads since 2015 are still supported. In general I expect the first 2-3 generations of a new product line to have shorter support cycle before they have matured a bit, so it doesn't surprise me that your particular iPad model only got 7 years, but if you buy an iPad today I would be surprised if it got less than 10+ years of support.

All that said, I think hardware companies should be forced to open up their hardware for booting alternative OSes once they are classified as EOL.

I have an ipad air sitting in my drawer right now that I haven't been able to use in years. It stopped getting major updates and stayed on iOS 12. It continued to get bug fix updates for the next few years, but that isn't really helpful when all the apps stopped supporting iOS 12.

No netflix, hulu, or HBO. I can't use it as a shopify terminal. Even if you are fine with an older version of these apps, these companies specifically disable their old apps, and make them stop working.

So...my ipad, which still has great battery life, sits in a drawer, because no apps work on it anymore. And I get it, that isn't 100% apples fault, these companies and their developers are to blame too, but apple certainly encourages targeting the latest versions os iOS.

All the Apple stuff that shipped with it still should work. Safari, Music, Maps, etc. That's a lot of useful stuff.

I had an old iPod Touch that had stopped receiving updates years ago. Old third-party apps were a problem. But all the Apple-shipped stuff still worked - even stuff like Music and Maps, which required server-side support.

The basic issue is that, say, 8 year old hardware is still pretty functional in a lot of cases but that’s probably near the support limit of even fairly long-term OS and app support.

I’m mostly ok on a couple Macs because I really only use them as browsers anyway. But with iPads and iPhones they really become useless without updates after a while.

I’ve been using an iPhone X as a spare phone for travel but it finally stopped charging and I see it’s out of support so not worth fixing.

>The basic issue is that, say, 8 year old hardware is still pretty functional in a lot of cases but that’s probably near the support limit of even fairly long-term OS and app support

I's partly a consequence of forcing people to install so much software on these devices in the first place. Netflix is absolutely fine in the browser, as are 90% of all other apps. No need to create dependencies on a local OS, its oppressive rules and update cycles.

I get the advantages of native apps on PC and Mac, especially open source apps, because it really gives you more control over the software you run. But on mobile, especially on iOS, you have no control anyway.

Re: “consequence of forcing people”, who is doing the “forcing” in your scenario and how is that force applied?

Netflix is doing the forcing. Banks are doing the forcing. There are many app categories with very little reason to exist at all, or at least not for creating dependencies on the latest client APIs.

Edit:

And it's not just that these apps are useless. In some cases they are inferior to the web app.

E.g., the Netflix iPad app can't seem to remember where I left off. It misses entire episodes. And every evening when I try to resume watching, I'm getting an error message because the old network connection is broken. Everything that's good about Netflix happens on the server. The app is just a dumb terminal and it can't even serve that purpose properly.

> The software support for iPads have been excellent imo, especially compared to competition.

Yes, excellent in comparison to the other "black rectangle" devices, phones, tablets, etc but compared to a regular PC still awful. My core 2 duo PC from ~16 years ago is still going strong.

I think the difference is, with an "open" platform like the PC it's up to the user when they want to replace the hardware, usually when it's too slow to keep up with the things you want to do. But with these newer devices you're completely at the mercy of the manufacturer - at some point the power flipped and that's a shame.

That was true for first-generation tablets but times have changed. I own an iPad Pro from 2017 and i couldn't tell the difference between a 2024 model on first sight. It still works perfectly fine for all general tablet use cases and receives all upgrades.

Yeah that mirrors my experience. I have a 2016 iPad pro which I use all the time and which doesn't show any signs of not meeting my needs any time soon. Probably the best value piece of computing hardware i've ever owned on a price per minute basis.

Further to this, the general use case for a tablet - i.e. web browsing / streaming video / reading / email etc. is light and there is no reason that hardware that is a few years old is would not be sufficient.

I have the same problem with an old hand-me-down ipad. I still find lots of uses for it, because browsers still work. I create tiny utility web pages for viewing miscellaneous info. Somehow it's still useful.

3 years for an iPad is very unusual?

But I’ve bought new Galaxies that don’t get updates within 2 years.

But I also have a Surface laptop bought in 2019 that won’t get updated after 2025. Sure I can run Linux but it was my wife’s machine, so that will go over like a ton of bricks.

Did you buy the iPad new in 2012? I find it hard to believe a new iPad stopped getting updates after 3 years.

I’ve had 3 iPads (2009-2015, 2015-2020, and now 2020-present) and upgraded the first two before they stopped getting software updates.

I’m on a VPN all day for work that doesn’t allow split tunneling (nothing on my local network is accessible when I’m on the VPN). Would an iPad work as a secondary display in this setup? Or does it require a local network connection?

Edit:

Looks like wireless requires network connectivity between the Mac and iPad. But USB presumably does not.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/102597

> I’m on a VPN all day for work that doesn’t allow split tunneling (nothing on my local network is accessible when I’m on the VPN).

One workaround for that might be to run your work environment in a VM, then the VPN only controls the network routing inside that not the host machine. In my experience VPNs that “claim” all off-machine traffic don't block more local traffic, so you should still be able to remote to the VM (i.e. using RDC under Windows) from the host OS, and maybe use the remote client's clipboard and filesystem integration to transfer at least text (and maybe other data & files) over the virtual machine boundary.

You can do it over USB but both devices need to be signed into the same iCloud account.

And sidecar doesn't play well with federated setups and managed devices.

If you are on linux (and have sufficient admin rights) you can force the vpn into it's own network space and have other apps in a different one. Doesn't matter if the VPN tries to tunnel everything through itself.

One option would be to run the vpn from a VM?

For Windows folks who want to use iPad as a second display, Luna Display is wonderful: https://astropad.com/product/lunadisplay/

I bought an iPad to use as a secondary portable Windows display and got a lot of mileage out of it. Though I honestly get even more mileage as a device for taking video calls.

That being said I agree with claims that the M4 is overpowered for my use. I was sold on more on the ‘just works’ nature of it, lightness, and screen size/quality. I just upgraded to an M4 entirely for that beautiful OLED.

> Luna Display is wonderful

Why should I pay $X per year just to have a second display?

I want a product, not a service.

It is a product with a one time cost. Not sure what you mean.

You are right. I clicked on "Studio", which is a service for turning your ipad into a drawing tablet.

I appreciate you taking a second look. Thank you!

I'm so envious sidecar works for him.

For the time I tried it my success rate was around 3 times in 5 attempts. The macbook also wasn't strong on reconnecting to standard external displays (screen stayed black about 1 in 15~20 times), but sidecar was really hit or miss in comparison. And it requiring to be on the same Apple ID was less than ideal when the coupling is between a work machine and my personal iPad.

TBF the Surface Pro is also not 100% working on the laptop -> surface pro setting, but it's more around once in 20 or 30 times, and there's no account setup to fret over.

Overall this feels like an unsolved problem, and I kinda understand why lenovo would ship dual mode tablets that straight act as a display when needed, instead of trying to hack it in software.

> And it requiring to be on the same Apple ID was less than ideal...

Similar experience, I tried to get Sidecar working a while ago via Lightning->USB cable. After realizing the Apple ID was a requirement I gave up. Bought an inexpensive 13" HiDPI portable display on Amazon, plugged it in and I've been happy ever since. Sure, its another device to bring around but its thin & light and a one cable solution. It just works...

I also have mixed results with using the iPad as an external monitor. It works every time, but it's orders of magnitude more fiddly than an actual monitor.

Exposing it as a monitor sounds like a much nicer interface, although I don't think Apple wants that, since it wouldn't work wirelessly.

"Apple could do something good with it, but since they aren't I turned mine into a monitor".

Classic. I bought a monitor for $80, plugged it in and 'It just worked'.

Here you have a hacker, watches one too many apple ads/marketing/astrotrufing doomscrooling, buys an ipad, and... makes a monitor out of it.

I suppose that is the second best thing you can do after being manipulated. I would have just resold it.

It seems you were immediately downvoted (I see this comment at the bottom and in grey). The cult is strong on HN and cannot bear this kind of reality, Sir.

It's just lazy, sub-Reddit, "iamverysmart" commentary that adds nothing useful to a conversations.

Sometimes, it turns out that it's not the case that everybody who makes a choice other than the one you made is either an idiot or manipulated.

Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.

No, it's just that "I buy cheapest stuff and if you don't you must be stupid/gullible/..." is tired.

Does this article have a point or am I missing something? Looks like it's incomplete.

It's perfect, actually. Its pithiness reflects the limitations of the walled garden in which the mind that conceived it lives. Normally, when you read "I fucked with the iPad. Hard", you'd think that at the least a soldering iron was involved. Maybe even wires, multimeters. Maybe hacking the boot process using gdb. Maybe an oscilloscope? That would be wow.

No. When your range of expressivity is passive consumer to passive-aggressive consumer, you are reduced to a small essay that ends with the whimper, "Can't wait to see how I feel about iPads next week". The only qualification to be a repeat Apple consumer is the complete lack of self-awareness and this essay is beautiful in encapsulating the cheery vacuousness of the cult.

> The only qualification to be a repeat Apple consumer is the complete lack of self-awareness and this essay is beautiful in encapsulating the cheery vacuousness of the cult.

Thank you. This has opened my eyes to all of those unnecessary productivity gains I get from the apple ecosystem I use. I have become complacent and too dependent on all that extra time I have because my apple devices just work together. I now realize instead that I should be using all that free time trying to make a whole bunch of plastic crap (that will only work for a couple of years) from different manufacturers try and work together.

> to be a repeat Apple consumer is the complete lack of self-awareness

Well one day hopefully the 100s of millions of us will end up as enlightened as you.

How did you gather that from this text? I don't see any substance in the article or is it not showing for me?

an ad in disguise, I guess

I've been using Spacedesk on Windows with two old Android tablets. They're Samsung Note 2014s, super cheap, old enough that YouTube has stopped working, but they're 10" at 2560x1600 with good color.

With good wireless, the setup is reasonably performant, fast enough to move the mouse and type fluently. Certainly slower than USB monitors, but ideal to put some reading material on one screen (PDF or a browser window), and a text editor on the other while still using the main screen.

I also use them in portrait orientation 10:16, which is nice. Cheapest and most portable triptych setup there is, I guess.

I have an old android tablet. It's good for media consumption. I'm using it for comic books and pdf (epub also but ereaders are better for that). I could use it for video too, but I don't watch video too often and either use my phone if the size screen don't matter or my computer if it matter.

I like mine because I can write on it. I do a lot of mathematics and it’s either dragging a pad of paper and pens or a whole computer that does a load of other stuff with me. So the computer wins.

Also it’s the only thing that works on plane tables properly without being too big, at a stupid angle or utterly impossible.

This is why I like my Surface, plus it will run R, full fat TeX and Emacs unlike the iPad. The iPad is a nice piece of kit but I was constantly running into walls.

I just run R and TeX on my Mac where I have a 27" screen. I hate using portable devices for actual productivity work.

iPad time is thinking time...

You just plug the Surface into the 27" screen. ;)

I have a much heftier Mac than any surface :)

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