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Comment by mort96 | Hacker News Reader

I would not want to use CAD software or a DAW without a proper mouse and keyboard, and maybe a 3D mouse too. An interface made for touch really isn't suitable. Even connecting a mouse to an iPad is a pretty shitty experience, since all the UI elements are too big and you have to wait around for animations to finish all the time.

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Shapr3D is an interesting 3D design tool which has some CAD capabilities and an interface optimized for use with a stylus --- Moment of Inspiration was similarly oriented (I really ought to try it).

How is connecting a blue tooth mouse to an iPad any different than connecting to a computer? Especially with iPad OS 26?

That is just one very simple part, connecting the mouse. Literally everything else sucks on iOS. File management, hidden menus, running multiple apps, system management... and the list goes on. Need to convert a STEP file to something else on the iPad? Download 15 apps to see which one works, then try to find the converted file in the abomination of a file system? iOS is hot garbage.

iPadOS works differently from macOS and if you aren’t willing to learn that, you will think it is bad. The problem isn’t the OS.

What if you've learned how to work around many of iPadOS's limitations and still think those limitations are bad?

Downloading 15 different paid or free-with-in-app-purchases or free-with-ads apps to see which one actually does what it's supposed to do is one of those workarounds. I've learned how to do it and done it a bunch of times and I don't really like it. I much prefer the macOS/Windows/Linux workflow where there's typically some established, community run and trustworthy FOSS software to do whatever conversion you need.

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