[mrgalaxy]

> Apple has pushed the iPad as a laptop replacement for years. But many pro users have noted that while the hardware is capable enough, the software is still behind.

As other HN users have noted in the past, until Apple gives me access to a terminal where I can run the command line tools required for my work, I have absolutely zero interest in replacing my laptop with an iPad.

[chipotle_coyote]

I go back and forth on this.

On the one hand: if Apple really wants the iPad to be a laptop replacement, there needs to be a way to do everything that a laptop can do. It doesn't have to be the same way; it might be a new way that requires a learning curve. (A lot of the "iPads suck because I can't do my work" articles I've seen really mean "iPads suck because I can't do my work the way I expect to be able to do it.") But if I literally can't do my work on an iPad, it's not a laptop replacement.

On the other hand: while I can't open a terminal on the iPad, I can open Blink and open an effectively persistent mosh terminal on my Linode. I have a Git client that can make a repository a document provider, letting text editors work with it directly. It's possible that there may be some things that the iPad can never do locally that I can still technically do "on the iPad," and that this may be enough.

[yomly]

On a plane, I have a terminal on my laptop. Mosh? Less likely...

[chipotle_coyote]

Are you willing to pay $8 or so for wifi access on the plane? Boom, you have mosh access.

I mean, yes, I get what you're saying, but I think it's at least plausible that the long-term solution for "doing developer things on the iPad" is going to involve network access and The Cloud™ for heavy lifting. (Granted, I think long-term, the distinction between local and remote everything is going to progressively blur over the coming years.)

[Edited to note: I think "Xcode for iOS" or an equivalent is almost certainly on the road map. I'm not sure whether full-blown web development of the "I am running a local web server on my iPad to test things" variety" is, although thinking about it, I can imagine ways a "LAMP App for iOS" might be implementable even today.]

[derefr]

Apple’s usage of the word “user” (as in “pro user”) doesn’t usually mean to include developers. “Pro users” refers to the category of people who use computers as a black box to do professional things.

[mrep]

So what do you call all the people who develop for apples platforms because they make an extremely high portion of the value for an OS. Without Mac/iOS developers, apple would have gone bankrupt long ago as no OS can compete withouts external developers?

[azernik]

And all of those iOS developers have somehow gotten along just fine without doing their development on an iOS device.

[mrep]

This thread is about using an iPad as a laptop replacement which no developer can do if they want to develop for Mac/IOS so what is your point?

[azernik]

You seemed to be arguing that Apple was at risk of losing its developers for iPad if it didn't make it suitable as a development platform. That's not plausible.

You seem to be responding to a higher-level comment saying "developers are not the target audience" with "but it's not suitable for developers", which... yeah?

[eridius]

I call them "developers".

[mrep]

And how do you think they will develop IOS/Mac apps with an Ipad which is what this thread is talking about?

[chipotle_coyote]

Long-term, there are likely to be iOS development tools that allow this. They may not be this year, or the next, but given that iOS already has Git clients, code editors, and even sandboxed programming environments like Pythonista and Scriptable, it's hardly ridiculous to think that an iOS equivalent to XCode is already under development.

[eridius]

I don’t. I think the iPad doesn’t have to replace 100% of laptop uses.

[untog]

You are in a tiny minority. I say this as a fellow member of that minority. But our complaints have (and should have) very little to do with what Apple does or doesn't do with iPads.

[rusk]

Except that you need developers to build an ecosystem and Apple is currently alienating them in droves. developers developera developers as a wise man once said

[rifung]

How does that argument follow? Apple needs developers but they don't need those developers writing code using an iPad do they?

After all, iPhones have an endless amount of apps but nobody (or close enough to nobody) is developing apps using their iPhone.

[rusk]

The stuff they do themselves is terrible; they need third parties and they need a thriving market place to develop talent and competency.

[untog]

I'm not seeing any decline in enthusiasm for iOS development, but maybe that's just me.

In any case, you can develop fully featured projects for iPad on the web too, you don't even need a Mac for that, let alone an iPad.

[rusk]

> you can develop fully featured projects for iPad on the web

Oh goody

[SomeOldThrow]

Apple is not in the business of designing tools, they are in the business of making money. We’re gonna end up using ipads regardless of our needs.

[mostlysimilar]

People need tools to build the apps that run on their devices, apps without which they would make significantly less money.

[SomeOldThrow]

People will build tools fine on Xcode for Ios or whatever, and you will have a unix app or something that gives you access to tools. Not want you want? I doubt apple gives a shit.

[holy_city]

I'm going to disagree about the hardware being capable enough, the memory and compute resources are too weak for professional uses where MacOS is the standard.

If the rumors are true and Apple is planning to abandon x86_64 for their machines to switch to the ARM cores for everything, I'm going to have to pry the mac pros running 10.6.8 from the cold dead hands of our users to get them over to Windows with modern hardware.

[npunt]

Take Geekbench for what it's worth, but the absolute fastest of the old cheesegrater Mac Pro's (dual 6core X5675) are just 56% the speed of a A12X single-core, and only about 40% faster multi-core. The next iPad Pro's A13X will probably get close to evening the playing field on multi-core.

It's really only the memory capacity that the Mac Pro's have an undisputed advantage on (4-6GB vs up to 128GB). Memory bandwidth is way faster (33GB/s vs 19GB/s) on A12X owing to LPDDR4 vs DDR3.

The latest iPad Pros are beneficiaries of a decade of intense R&D from the most profitable product in the world (iPhone). Form-factor aside, the chips themselves are stupid fast.

http://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/13281048

https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/11468644

[tomjen3]

I have tried every variation of new laptops/phones/etc I have come to the conclusion that anything which doesn't have a full physical keyboard is a consumption device. That is not necessarily a bad thing (you can consume excellent learning material, for example) but it will preclude it from ever being useful for work.

You can certainly attach a bluetooth keyboard to an iPad (I did so yesterday) and then they are pretty good for writting emails, but they are annoying to carry and a thin laptop is much better.

[npunt]

That's cool, it's not for you. I don't think they've ever suggested it as a laptop replacement for everyone - just general consumers.

[Isamu]

For years Apple has said iPad and iOS in particular is not the same use case as mac/maOS. They are complements.

[acolumb]

You CAN run a terminal with a jailbroken iPad.

Just sayin'