[terhechte]

I've by now come to the belief that there's someone high ranking in Apple Org responsible for iPad who deeply despises developers. Every action done over the past years has made development on the iPad worse, not better. Such as spending extra legal energy to make sure the recently-introduced emulator support on iOS does not cover running any kind of computer VM that could allow software development. At the same time, Android ships an official terminal that can run a Debian VM and X11 apps.

[xorcist]

Apple is a consumer company. They're all about catering to the consumer class, and growing that class at any price.

Developers are necessary, and their needs has to be tolerated, but only as long as they are successfully kept distinct from consumers.

[wpm]

It's one thing to not have your needs directly catered to and delivered on a silver platter.

It's another to have the company go far out of their way to they don't even leave the field open for someone to cater to your needs.

[rafram]

I don't think that's true at all. Apple has always marketed itself as a brand for creatives. Image/video editing and 3D modeling software demands a lot from its hardware, just like developer tools do. But removing restrictions on developer tools is inherently a security risk, and Apple seems very willing to ship less capable devices if they're also less vulnerable.

[nunez]

Android is no panacea either. There are no Android tablets that are anywhere close to achieving parity with the iPad.

I used a Samsung Galaxy Tab S8+ with the Book Cover (the one with the track pad) and the Smart Folio (the one without a track pad).

The track pad was horrible. HORRIBLE. Ghost taps, misfired scrolls, and cheap feeling clicks. The track pad on the Magic Keyboard is as good as the standalone Magic Trackpad; this didn't even come close in quality.

The keyboard was fine, but keyboard shortcuts are implemented on a per app basis. This is fine until you want to use CTRL+L in Firefox to navigate to some URL only to discover that Firefox simply doesn't support keyboard shortcuts! Someone opened an issue for this two years ago too because, insanely enough, FF used to support them but simply dropped them because "reasons."

Then there was the cover. The Book Cover provides a Surface like kickstand that's adjustable. Great on a table; unusable on your legs. The Folio solves this by using a tented support, but this forces the tablet into a 25-ish degree tilt that I didn't find comfortable. There wasn't anything like the Magic Keyboard's excellent magic hinge (though maybe later model Galaxy Tabs have an equivalent).

All that said, Termux worked GREAT, and I think I would've gotten mileage out of using an external screen with DeX though I've heard it's lacking in that department. I badly wanted this setup to work, but there were too many quirks.

Also, battery life sucked.

[mathiaspoint]

They despise users becoming developers. Apple's entire model depends on these being separate groups of people (as opposed to GNU/Linux OSes where they're assumed to be exactly the same.)

Keeping development tools away from users gives Apple a substantial amount of power over them that they can rent out to approved software development organizations.

[ngcc_hk]

That is Microsoft. Apple for small developers just paid $100 per year got you there. And tbh the terminal and underlying unix shell is real.

[mathiaspoint]

Ironically it's easier to run a compiler and do whatever you like on Microsoft's OSes these days.