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Working on the iPad: One Year Later, Still My Favorite Computer

14 points by shawndumas 11y ago

Mithaldu 11y ago
Hidden lede: Author is a fulltime blogger. Sure, that can work. However that is only one niche, and for most professions out there that require computers, the iPad will not be sufficient, or at best wildly inefficient.
- berntb 11y ago
  I know quite a few people that spend most of their days in ssh, even running Emacs over the link. That is a natural for the iPad, now that it have good ssh clients. (I tend to run my Emacs local, but I could change.)
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- colemannerd 11y ago
  Yes. This is such a specific use case that most workers don't follow. If he was doing a job using the full microsoft office suite - or alternatives - this would be far more representative of office workers. Of course, that misses all developers, but then again we know how far they are to actually letting us develop on an iPad.
  - fuzzywalrus 11y ago
    Even for blogging, the iPad is a series of compromises. While there are image editors, none are on the level of photoshop and the audio software, while it exists isn't nearly as powerful or fast. I'm sure anything the author does, I can do faster and more efficiently with OS X. As a front end developer, sometimes contractor for TV Shows, and hobbyist musician who's made the odd dollar, not a single one of these activities are viable on the iPad. Sure, the author does fine with an iPad and seems to like it but for most people this is simply not a reality.
justinsaccount 11y ago
Welcome to 2016, where the most revolutionary feature on a popular device is that you can now look at two windows at the same time.
toxiczone 11y ago
What a disappointment realizing the story is "I can blog from my iPad". I guess welcome to 2016 and page 2 of hacker news. Now time to remember my HN password (from my iphone 4)
jekub 11y ago
My nexus 9 have changed a lot the way I work. As a professor, my time is split between teaching and research. I still use my computer to prepare my lectures and a big part of my coding but, giving lecture, reading papers and taking notes are all done on it. The combination of termux and SSH means than I can do some dev on it if I have the Bluetooth keyboard with me, it's not ideal but enough to not justify taking my computer with me for one our of coding in the day. The interactivity of being able to move through the classroom and ask students to write answers on a virtual whiteboard keeping the results and going back later to this is invaluable. For a lot of things I do with it, there seems to be only half finished poorly written applications and still it's a big improvement in my work I truly wait for the day were we have good PDF library app with a reader that can take notes, a good whiteboard app that allow you to have an infinite canvas, ... but even now it changed my way to work for the better.

14 points by shawndumas 11y ago

Hidden lede: Author is a fulltime blogger. Sure, that can work. However that is only one niche, and for most professions out there that require computers, the iPad will not be sufficient, or at best wildly inefficient.

berntb 11y ago
I know quite a few people that spend most of their days in ssh, even running Emacs over the link. That is a natural for the iPad, now that it have good ssh clients. (I tend to run my Emacs local, but I could change.)
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
colemannerd 11y ago
Yes. This is such a specific use case that most workers don't follow. If he was doing a job using the full microsoft office suite - or alternatives - this would be far more representative of office workers. Of course, that misses all developers, but then again we know how far they are to actually letting us develop on an iPad.
- fuzzywalrus 11y ago
  Even for blogging, the iPad is a series of compromises. While there are image editors, none are on the level of photoshop and the audio software, while it exists isn't nearly as powerful or fast. I'm sure anything the author does, I can do faster and more efficiently with OS X. As a front end developer, sometimes contractor for TV Shows, and hobbyist musician who's made the odd dollar, not a single one of these activities are viable on the iPad. Sure, the author does fine with an iPad and seems to like it but for most people this is simply not a reality.

justinsaccount 11y ago

Welcome to 2016, where the most revolutionary feature on a popular device is that you can now look at two windows at the same time.

toxiczone 11y ago

What a disappointment realizing the story is "I can blog from my iPad". I guess welcome to 2016 and page 2 of hacker news. Now time to remember my HN password (from my iphone 4)

jekub 11y ago

My nexus 9 have changed a lot the way I work. As a professor, my time is split between teaching and research. I still use my computer to prepare my lectures and a big part of my coding but, giving lecture, reading papers and taking notes are all done on it. The combination of termux and SSH means than I can do some dev on it if I have the Bluetooth keyboard with me, it's not ideal but enough to not justify taking my computer with me for one our of coding in the day. The interactivity of being able to move through the classroom and ask students to write answers on a virtual whiteboard keeping the results and going back later to this is invaluable. For a lot of things I do with it, there seems to be only half finished poorly written applications and still it's a big improvement in my work I truly wait for the day were we have good PDF library app with a reader that can take notes, a good whiteboard app that allow you to have an infinite canvas, ... but even now it changed my way to work for the better.