15 ms·

Coding on an iPad Pro in 2019

123 points by benryon 8y ago

tonysdg 8y ago
Is there a reason no one has built a Cygwin-like environment for iOS yet? As in, is it because (1) it's time-consuming, (2) it's tricky, or (3) Apple won't allow it on their App Store?
- hulahoof 8y ago
  Based on the discussions[0] going on for the iSh x86 emulator[1] from a few months ago I think its a combination of all three, but mainly (3). [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18430031 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18430031 [1] https://github.com/tbodt/ish https://github.com/tbodt/ish
russellbeattie 8y ago
Alternative title: "Hitting yourself in the head with a hammer, because it feels so great when you stop."
- chrisseaton 8y ago
  What's wrong with trying something out to see if it's ready yet? You're making it sound like it's stupid to even see if something works.
  - flukus 8y ago
    > What's wrong with trying something out to see if it's ready yet? It will never be ready, it's the wrong tool for the job. Trying to use the wrong tool for the job is stupid, do you routinely try to hammer nails with a screwdriver to see if it's ready yet?
    - chrisseaton 8y ago
      My screwdriver never changes. The iPad is an ever-evolving tool. It may become the right tool one day.
    - ddoolin 8y ago
      It works just fine right now, depending on what you're trying to do. I learned and continue to practice Rust development via my iPad Pro near daily.
    - delinka 8y ago
      Hammers, nails, and screws a pretty much set. They're not changing regularly. An iPad becoming a laptop-replacement is happening - its progress is debatable, but it's definitely changing on each iteration.
      - flukus 8y ago
        > Hammers, nails, and screws a pretty much set. Laptops, tablets, code and keyboards are pretty much set, they're not changing regularly. To code comfortably you need a keyboard, that's the tool for the job and one that tablets do not have. Sure you can add an external one, but then you've basically got a locked down laptop. Just look at the the comments here, at best the iPad seems to be capable of acting as a dumb terminal to interact with a keyboard for a remote server, I wouldn't consider that coding on an iPad.
        delinka 8y ago
        Looks like you're intentionally missing the point. The iPad is a tablet, and yes, it's functionality is changing every iteration - slightly with hardware, more so with the OS. Currently the iPad might not seem capable of much wrt programming, but it is changing. Therefore someone tests it out periodically. And you don't have to like it. It doesn't have to be you testing the thing out. You're completely free to live an iPad-free life.
      - cageface 8y ago
        If anything it feels like it's becoming clear that iOS is not going to be a viable OSX replacement for most professional use cases without a huge bump up in complexity. At which point you have to wonder why bother with it at all? Microsoft seems to have a much clearer vision here and anecdotally I know quite a few people that have been Mac users for ages that have given up on iPads and bought Surface devices because they can use them to do real work.
        ddoolin 8y ago
        I actually agree with you and others pitching Microsoft products as a better replacement for this sort of thing, for sure. I use the iPad Pro because I already had it, having purchased it for a different reason entirely. My only gripe with a Surface product would be the Windows part of it, which isn't THAT bad and like you said, they have a pretty clear vision for the future of it.
- kristianov 8y ago
  Without those who hit their heads with hammer at times, we won't know if it feels great or not.
cgb223 8y ago
If I could code on an iPad Pro, I’d finally get rid of my MacBook Pro. I think that’s exactly why apple doesn’t allow this at all...
- jlarocco 8y ago
  Can you explain the appeal? As a long time iPhone and iPad owner, I find iOS intolerable and it gets worse with every release. Coding on an iPad would be like trying to prepare a 5 course dinner on a kid's Fisher Price kitchen or building an intricate model with Duplo Lego bricks. Maybe possible, but a terrible experience. So what am I missing?
  - chipotle_coyote 8y ago
    I am genuinely baffled by "iOS gets worse with every release." If you wanted to argue that iOS's approach to multi-pane displays, application switching, and file management, should be better than it is now, sure, absolutely. But when I consider the improvements in the past few years -- the dock, split view, drag and drop, file providers, Shortcuts -- I confess I'm not thinking, "Man, I long for all the power and utility we had in iOS 6 that's lost to us now." I mean, yes, iOS is still by and large a terrible coding environment, there are a host of long-standing complaints I have with other things both large and small, and I don't doubt I could find a few weird little annoying regressions, but I absolutely wouldn't want to run an earlier version of iOS on my iPad.
    - jlarocco 8y ago
      I don't write mobile apps, so I have no idea about the coding environment, but the last several upgrades have consistently annoyed me. It seems there's a lot of change for the sake of change; more things tied into iCloud and other Apple services; upgrade prompts that prompt over and over and over and over again; etc.. And then there are several annoying bugs they don't fix, like having to reboot my phone after tethering my laptop (a Macbook) before I can tether again.
  - cgb223 8y ago
xvolter 8y ago
Since the best options currently rely on remote programming and browser-accessed IDEs, has anyone tried using a remote desktop tool, Parallels Access, TeamViewer, or VM software to simply remotely program? I can't imagine it'd be great still…
- duncan-donuts 8y ago
  I work with a guy that does everything in cloud9. It seems to be working for him, but I’m not sure I see the appeal.
cabaalis 8y ago
How is the experience with web IDEs like cloud9 or repl.it?
- johnymontana 8y ago
  I was really surprised that many of the web IDEs don't support the external keyboard in iOS. I haven't tried repl.it, but the ace editor (which cloud9 uses) doesn't support the arrow keys on the external keyboard for iOS which is a deal breaker for me.[1] Code Sandbox [2] however allows you to select which editor (Monaco or CodeMirror) and CodeMirror has a fix for handling the arrow keys. I've found Code Sandbox works pretty well on my iPad - it has a nice Github integration so I can commit directly or open pull requests from the web IDE. [1]: https://github.com/ajaxorg/ace/pull/3172 https://github.com/ajaxorg/ace/pull/3172 [2]: https://codesandbox.io https://codesandbox.io
- superfrank 8y ago
  I tried using a chromebook to develop about 12-18 months ago and tried both cloud9 and repl.it. I found cloud9 a bit annoying to use. It basically spins up an EC2 instance for you that you are then connecting to, so you have pretty much a full file system which was cool, but it felt like they were really pushing Lambda as the way to go. Trying to run a bunch of dockerized microservices on a single instance (which is what our infrastructure is) was possible, but it just felt like an uphill battle, so I abandoned it. Repl.it was much easier to work with, IMO. The problem I ran into was that it worked well for small projects or prototyping, but became a pain if I had to switch between multiple projects regularly. IMO, both were cool and overall fairly solid, but there were just too many little annoyances that piled up that I don't get with my current local development set up. It just felt like I spent a lot of my time configuring things or trying to hack things to fit my workflow. That all being said, I'm not the most patient person with new tools and this was a while ago, things might have changed or may fit your development style better. I'd say they are worth at least looking into.
  - k__ 8y ago
    You get an EC2 with the size of your choosing that runs an Amazon Linux 2 with pre-installed AWS credentials. Isn't this the same infrastructure your microservice will run on in the end?
CJKinni 8y ago
I haven’t looked into it beyond typing a couple of lines into the terminal but I’m wondering how useful iSh will be for people trying to go down this road. From https://ish.app https://ish.app - “iSH is a project to get a Linux shell environment running locally on your iOS device, using a usermode x86 emulator.”
- mbreese 8y ago
  I’ve been using this for the past few days on an iPad, and so far, it’s been great. There are plenty of syscalls that aren’t working, but it’s far more functional that I anticipated. In fact, playing with iSH on my phone for a month or so is what convinced me to get the iPad at all. I haven’t been able to try too much coding in iSH as opposed to SSHing out to a server, but that’s one use-case that’s on their radar.
nickmain 8y ago
Codea [0] provides a nice Lua development sandbox and will export projects that can be turned into standalone apps via Xcode. It is geared towards game development and is currently somewhat locked down with respect to importing/exporting, compared to Pythonista. It does play well with Working Copy [1] though. [0] https://codea.io https://codea.io [1] https://workingcopyapp.com https://workingcopyapp.com
- steve_taylor 8y ago
  Codea is awesome. It has so many features and a ton of great examples. You can build the app entirely using an iPad and then export it as an Xcode project when you’re ready to distribute it.
godid 8y ago
I've had some luck using http://continuous.codes http://continuous.codes to write small C# and F# apps/games. I wish it were more actively developed because there is so much potential there.
0xADEADBEE 8y ago
I'm struggling to work out why anyone would want to do this. Leaving aside the other concerns, I personally find input via touchscreen pretty painful and can't imagine being able to program at any real speed. It's entirely possible I'm missing something though!
- awad 8y ago
  They do make external keyboards for the iPad, for what it is worth.
- akerl_ 8y ago
  I'd say coding using just a touchscreen would be terrible, but keep in mind that tablets aren't limited to just the touchscreen. In fact, you can plug a full-sized mechanical keyboard into an iPad (though the more common keyboard is likely the smartcover.
  - ianai 8y ago
    I got the Bluetooth kinesis for just this reason. It’s ergonomic. You can pair it with up to 3 devices and switch between them with a key combo.
  - zozbot123 8y ago
    > I'd say coding using just a touchscreen would be terrible Text-based coding, sure. But the jury is still out for visual programming systems, of either the Scratch (syntax expressed via custom "puzzle pieces") or the LabVIEW (flow-based semantics) kind.
    - akerl_ 8y ago
      Agreed. Basically all my programming is backend / CLI projects. I'd almost certainly have had a different result if I'd tried writing frontend (especially native) apps from an iPad
    - flukus 8y ago
      > But the jury is still out for visual programming systems How many more decades of failure do we need before we decide the jury is in and visual programming is a dead end?
a13n 8y ago
> You Probably Can’t Run Your Code on iOS Unless It’s Python What about JavaScript? IIRC React Native uses the JavaScriptCore engine, which Apple offers to "provide the ability to evaluate JavaScript programs from within Swift, Objective-C, and C-based apps". [1] [1]: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/javascriptcore https://developer.apple.com/documentation/javascriptcore
- ilikehurdles 8y ago
  There's also REPLete, a clojurescript repl for iOS and Android.
akerl_ 8y ago
I actually just recently tried to use an iPad Pro for coding (more specifically, I tried to not use my laptop at all for several days, fully replacing it with an iPad). My experience was that coding was definitely not as smooth as on my laptop, but I took an approach several folks here have called out: using a cloud-based VM and connecting to it remotely. I used the Termius app, which was pretty solid. I got my initial inspiration from http://yieldthought.com/post/12239282034/swapped-my-macbook-for-an-ipad http://yieldthought.com/post/12239282034/swapped-my-macbook-... (and the followup http://yieldthought.com/post/31857050698/ipad-linode-1-year-later http://yieldthought.com/post/31857050698/ipad-linode-1-year-... )
- ddoolin 8y ago
  I did/do the exact same thing. I have an AWS nano server purely for coding on, and I use tmux/vim on it via Termius. I hadn't consulted the internet for resources, just kinda stumbled my way through it, so good to know I'm not very much alone. It works quite well for what I need it for (systems programming) and there are even better options for web app programming. I haven't explored doing native GUI applications but it can be likely overcome. Termius is probably one of the best apps I've ever used, period. It's very well-made and well-designed and I had no qualms shelling out for the full version even though I hardly needed the extra features. I still prefer a Linux/Mac/Windows OS but this is pretty handy once you get the hang of it.
- cageface 8y ago
  It seems like in this case you're not really coding "on" an iPad and it's really just more of a dumb terminal. Wouldn't any device with a browser be just as good in this case?
  - wlesieutre 8y ago
    It’s a very lightweight device with an excellent screen, impressive battery life, and the option for built-in LTE. But yeah, in terms of functional capability to connect to a server and type stuff, other devices would work as well. Also an excellent tablet when you’re doing non-coding stuff.
thisgoodlife 8y ago
None of the online IDEs are as good as PyCharm. Don't waste your time and money.
reustle 8y ago
The iPad Pro will become a viable "pro" device when they finally stop artificially holding it back by not allowing a full version of Safari. Edit: and of course mouse/trackpad support
- FPGAhacker 8y ago
  What’s missing?
  - ddoolin 8y ago
    Developer tooling on-device, for one.
    - k__ 8y ago
      Yes, Xcode would be awesome.
  - reustle 8y ago
    It is the iOS version of Safari instead of the desktop version. Sites often opt for showing the mobile version.
    - kitsunesoba 8y ago
      This is fairly easily worked around for sites that look at the user agent — just build a browser app around WKWebView and set its user agent to that of desktop Safari, and boom, you’ve got desktop versions of most sites. There are a few that judge which version to deliver based on screen resolution + OS, but this can sometimes be worked around by injecting some JS to force use of desktop stylesheets. There’s probably some kind of trickery you could use to spoof screen resolution if needed, too.
      - graeme 8y ago
        Icab mobile does this. It's good. The problem is, safari is better for a lot of things, and also has native adblocker integration. Would be better to be able to designate a desktop user agent in safari as well.
k__ 8y ago
Anyone tried Cloud9 on an iPad Pro?
- ddoolin 8y ago
  Cloud9 shuttered once they got bought by AWS and now they're built into the AWS console/ecosystem. I tried it but found it pretty terrible given a couple shots at it. I found Termius + a development server (EC2 instance, much like Cloud9 sets up for you anyway) much more reliable and easy to use.
  - k__ 8y ago
    Oh I know. I use it for AWS development, that's why I'm asking.
    - ddoolin 8y ago
      I use it on the job when working in AWS with no problem, but it definitely doesn't seem to have been developed with mobile strongly in mind. The experience is stark.
benguild 8y ago
Swift Playgrounds is cool.
- asow92 8y ago
  I'm surprised the author didn't mention this. Playgrounds have a great deal of flexibility and can be a great for prototyping or learning Swift.
lazyjones 8y ago
If Node-red wasn't such a mess, had a better UI (less mouse/typing required, touchscreen-friendly) and a proper native runtime on ios, I'd fancy using it...
devereaux 8y ago
Better idea: coding on a Microsoft Go in 2019 Pros: - hardware: the keyboard is good, no connection issues, fast NVMe if you get the 128Gb model, LTE option to be always on - windows: WSL, stable, good experience - linux: great support if you are using the linux-surface kernel branch (only the webcams are not working - everything else works)
- zozbot123 8y ago
  > linux: great support if you are using the linux-surface kernel branch Meh, whatever. Is there any ETA for hardware support when using the Linux mainline kernel?
  - devereaux 8y ago
    IDK. Ask around. Apparently the main kernel is also OK: https://www.reddit.com/r/SurfaceLinux/comments/94hjxv/surface_go_first_impressions https://www.reddit.com/r/SurfaceLinux/comments/94hjxv/surfac...
  - whywhywhywhy 8y ago
    No one complaining about that on the iPad front. Always feel there is heavy grading on a curve whenever the iPad is involved.
mwillsey 8y ago
Blink (mentioned in the post) is a fantastic app. It's open source [1], or you can buy it from the App Store. Not mentioned in the post, Blink can do port forwarding with the usual ssh tool (ssh -L 5000:localhost:5000 myhost.com). It also provides a shell-like mode of interaction with the local file system and iCloud, so you can `scp` files around between the iPad and your server. [1]: https://github.com/blinksh/blink https://github.com/blinksh/blink
makecheck 8y ago
Programming is not just about programming tools, it is about the OS environment. I prefer being able to arrange things anywhere, and the iPad has always bugged me by rationing shared-app screen space as if I’m a child (you get up to this fraction of the screen but it must be arranged only “here”; or, you can picture-in-picture but only the specified way; etc.). My first iPad was wonderful for web browsing until web sites started doing exactly the same rationing, “locking in” some arrangement that they deemed appropriate, to hell with my preferences. Even the iOS launch screen is irritating, with icons wastefully arranged in a specific way that looks like no desktop I have ever had; and the Files app is not much more useful for navigating. The OS is about 5 years overdue for a “put stuff wherever the hell I want” capability. And unfortunately, basic editing is also nowhere near where it needs to be on iOS. No matter how many hacks they add, cursor movement is still simply bad: it is way too hard to do the kind of precise changes I need to do. Pop-up menus are overloaded. The keyboard layout is asinine: unlike a physical keyboard, there is no room between the Delete and Return keys so I am constantly committing things early that I am still editing. (In cloud-sync apps like Notes, I occasionally permanently destroy text because I accidentally do something that is then screwed up on all other devices instantaneously for my convenience. When entering something like a URL, I regularly start “loading” an incompletely-typed address accidentally because the keyboard thinks I said Go.) Therefore, there is no way I would use a tablet until they essentially recreate proper window, file and cursor management with full arbitrary resize and effortless dragging and plenty of keyboard short-cuts. This feels like a consequence of Apple perhaps splitting up the iOS and Mac teams too much: the Mac did have quite a bit and it’s almost like they’re being told to consider none of it and just invent everything anew, no matter how long that takes.
- wlesieutre 8y ago
  I don’t have any trouble with cursor movement, but text selection is really awful a lot of the time
  - graeme 8y ago
    Have you used this two finger method? https://mobile.twitter.com/stroughtonsmith/status/1061198300878135296 https://mobile.twitter.com/stroughtonsmith/status/1061198300... I find apple has gotten bad at ui discoverability. There's a ton of ios features I learned only through forums.
underwater 8y ago
Why not use a Surface? It's built with a physical keyboard as a first class experience, and you're not limited in what you can run. The only limitation is the lack of a polished POSIX environment, but that will of course be missing on iOS too.
- jammygit 8y ago
  So much telemetry on windows these days...
- mrkstu 8y ago
  Because that 'first class' keyboard experience doesn't actually let it work as a laptop. You still need a stable surface to work on.
epynonymous 8y ago
i develop typically 3 types of things, backend rest services, web apps, and mobile apps. for me to truly rid myself of my macbook pro, i would need the following, or equivalents: 1. the ability to start vm’s, preferably locally, i use these to run persistent services like redis, rabbitmq, databases, etc. i have this philosophy where my dev env needs to get as close as possible to the production env (at least from a software stack perspective) which means linux, yet it cant cost me as much as a production env. homebrew is great, but i try to stay away as much as possible because it’s a little different from my production env. accessing an ec2 instance or rds instance to access my postgres database is a bit overkill, i want things fast during development, ie local. sometimes i’m in places with no wifi or 4g coverage is spotty, this would be a nightmare. 2. i use visual code for all development, sometimes vi if i dont have a gui env, visual code is lightweight and pretty solid. i’m not 100% stuck on visual code, so if there’s some browser based derivative of it or wsywig for coding then i’m good. visual code is written in electron so nodejs, so i dont think it’s impossible. web development, html, js, css, this can all be done on an ipad relatively well, all the browsers i need to support are available. there’s typically no compilation that needs to happen, unless you’re using nodejs modules on your frontend. i seem to remember some company providing a cloud service that allows you to develop remotely, i think they were bought by github/msft or someone. kind of an interesting area. 3. backend dev, typically i use golang, this becomes a bigger problem, surely i could ssh somewhere and compile, or use some x11/vnc-like tool since i prefer a graphical ide, but that defeats the purpose of my 1000 usd ipad. it’s not really a dumb terminal or thin client per se, i have enough compute power, i want to leverage it. plus i’d need to be spending all this money on ec2 like instances. 4. xcode, this is another major issue, i’m stuck on xcode, sure i could use xamarin, but i dont think that runs on ios yet either. if this were resolved, i could strongly consider scraping my macbook pro. sounds kind of interesting if there could be a monthly service that could be purchased that provides you with remote dev envs without all the fuss of installing, managing any of it. e.g. i write code in a browser ide, it gets compiled in the cloud somewhere, deployed, and i can access it. i can connect different services to it, and testing is fully automated. i think i’d consider paying for something like this, but it’d have to be relatively cheap because otherwise i might as well do everything myself locally. i’m thinking 5 usd a month max. i havent used chromebook, but i think it’s closer to a dev env than ipad pro at the moment, i think you can even start containers and such on it.
oblib 8y ago
This really comes back to the very old saying; "Use the right tool for the job". That's not to say it cannot be done, or won't work in a pinch. It's just not the right tool to use in practice.
bribri 8y ago
I want a touch first drag and drop editor
- kkarakk 8y ago
  many tried, many failed. even apple themselves couldn't get users to adopt 3D touch after multiple years of very expensive engineering. probably going to be removed from iOS devices next year. your finger has 3 articulation points, your hand has 5 fingers. the touch interface uses maybe two points out of all this complicated mechanism - it's fundamentally frustrating to use. it's fine for when a phone is cradled precariously on your palm/little finger but an iPad instantly makes you think "why can't i have a mouse or something"
jpmattia 8y ago
For those of us married to emacs: I would love to know if anyone has succeeded in using SSH on an iPadPro with a sensible mapping of the keyboard. Every SSH I tried had some intercept of control sequences, which was fatal as far as I was concerned. This was at least couple of years ago, so perhaps there's been progress. So far, the only usable iPadPro emacs is via uVNC to a graphical remote machine, which does seem to provide unhindered transmission of control/meta combination key events when using an external keyboard. Pointers/corrections/tips/advice welcome. Edit: Any reviews on ssh with Blink to a remote machine to run emacs?
- frosty_sword 8y ago
  I haven't tried this with a keyboard, but it's been working well for me sshing into my server and doing some small stuff with vim. https://github.com/tbodt/ish https://github.com/tbodt/ish
- colordrops 8y ago
  Why is everyone in this thread ignoring Android tablets? There are ports for most command line apps, including Emacs. Try Termux.
  - a_e_k 8y ago
    I had the same thought. To give an example and add some context: just last week I thought of a possible bug and gap in the test coverage for a personal project. Within a Zsh prompt, I pulled the latest revision from Bitbucket using Mercurial, used Emacs (via the Hacker's Keyboard [1] soft keyboard) to edit the test suite and add a couple of lines, then used CMake to generate a makefile for GNU Make to build the project using Clang, and finally ran the test suite and confirmed the expected segfault. All of this was done locally (except for the pull, obviously) from within a Termux [2] session on a sub-$300 Android phone. Granted, the full test suite takes about 14x longer to run on my phone compared to my aging desktop and it's tedious to type very much, but as the old saying goes: "The marvel is not that the bear dances well, but that the bear dances at all." [1] https://github.com/klausw/hackerskeyboard https://github.com/klausw/hackerskeyboard [2] https://wiki.termux.com/wiki/Main_Page https://wiki.termux.com/wiki/Main_Page, http://termux.net/dists/stable/main/binary-arm/ http://termux.net/dists/stable/main/binary-arm/
hessproject 8y ago
This is the reason I ditched the iPad for a Surface. Windows isn't my preferred environment but the ability to run my normal tools (IDEs, command line tools, etc) really was a game changer. iPad Pro is great for creative workflows, but it's a shame it leaves programmers in the dust. It would be really great even to see something like XCode come to iOS
- pxeboot 8y ago
  I agree. Xcode for iOS is exactly what is needed to make the iPad a serious tool.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- MiddleEndian 8y ago
  I find that the Surface (Book) has a good creative workflow as well since it has the Adobe Suite and Krita (and all Windows programs of course).
- abrookins 8y ago
  I own a Surface device, an iPad Pro, and a Macbook Pro. While I write code on all of them, macOS is still the king of development environments. On macOS, you can just work. That's what the end goal should be in other platforms. I doubt iOS will ever get there. I mean, how are you supposed to copy and paste code from Vim running in tmux inside of Blink? With your finger? Hell's bells! Windows is just too weird. If you compare them strictly from the perspective of using Vim, Windows is better than iOS. You can use Vim from WSL or a VM in a nice Linux terminal like Tilix running on a Windows-native X server. Boom, Vim is running right alongside your Python interpreter, $GOPATH, etc., and copy and paste works. (Let's set aside the fact that WSL is crawling with problems.) But if you use Windows, you'd kind of expect to be able to use more than Vim, right? That ends up being a pit of snakes... multiple Windows-native X servers I've tried have problems rendering Intellij, and I've tried to get native Windows editors like VS Code to work smoothly with interpreters hosted in WSL or VMs. Only Intellij can really do it properly, and even then it depends on the language. It ends up being just another distraction. Then there's running Linux desktop on a VM in Windows 10. I don't know how other people do this. Even with a beefy machine with two GPUs, no modern Linux window manager is performant enough to use. If you can find one like xfce that is fast enough, you end up having to manage the scaling on individual programs when you switch between high DPI and lower DPI displays. It's bananas! So purely from the perspective of access to any tool you want to use and limiting distractions, macOS is still the best. I'm rooting for Windows, but only because I have a 2017 MBP and the new keyboards are painful to type on.
v-yadli 8y ago
> Other than Python, I haven’t found any generally useful interpreter or compiler apps on iOS. Haven’t tried myself, but this looks very interesting: (A lighttable-ish .NET IDE for iOS) http://continuous.codes/ http://continuous.codes/
- abrookins 8y ago
  Ah, ha! I KNEW I had read about this, but couldn't find my notes on it, so I didn't include it. Thank you!
ulzeraj 8y ago
I've crossed Europe and Russia by train while receiving emails and calls from work (from Brazil) during 50 days and the only machine I had was a 2017 10'5 iPad Pro. I've ditched the laptop because of how light it was and also the fact that it could connect to cellular networks with a SIM card. So I had a browser, Slack, Fortinet VPN, ProtonMail client, Shelly SSH client, Textastic and Working copy (git), TeamViewer, RealVNC and the Microsoft RDP client along with some network debugging tools (ping, whois, traceroute etc). I didn't needed any more than that. Negative points about this experience: My keyboard (logicool) didn't had an escape key having a home button on the place of esc. I consider this beyond retarded. Also for some retarded reason cellular functions like sending and receiving SMS is disabled even while using a SIM card.
- moises_silva 8y ago
  > and also the fact that it could connect to cellular networks with a SIM card I never actually understood that. Everyone carries a cellphone, can't you just do tethering? that's what I do anyways. I guess the only advantage of an iPad with SIM is that is 'always connected' as opposed to click and connect to your mobile hotspot?
  - int_19h 8y ago
    Tethering drains the phone battery very fast, and your phone is usually the one thing that you want to die last on you. But there are plenty of laptops with integrated SIM card slot and modem, and the rest of them can be extended with the same via USB.
    - ulzeraj 8y ago
      Battery life was an important consideration. The trip from Ulan-Ude to Khabarovsk takes 3 days on a train that might have or not power outlets on the coupe cabins depending on your luck. The power supplied from these plugs seems to take ages to charge the the iPad. I also had 2 Asus 10050 mAh battery banks with me that can charge the iPad from 0 to 70%.
    - kartickv 8y ago
a-ve 8y ago
This seems like an exercise in masochism. Why would you want to code on an OS targeted for smartphones and without any native compiler support? To those who want LTE connectivity, I don't think you know there's a device called the Thinkpad X1 with this functionality built in. Or is it that coding on tablets is considered "hip" these days?
- voltagex_ 8y ago
  I dislike Apple, but one thing I'll say in their favour is that I can wander into any Apple store and get a replacement device when it breaks (or maybe even a repair if I'm lucky). Lenovo, on the other hand took weeks to get back to me and then quoted $400AUD to replace the display backlight - with someone else's name on the quote. If I've got LTE connectivity, I'm probably going to remote in to some other box with a lot more processing power, rather than code on a limited laptop/mobile processor.
  - subfay 8y ago
    Valid but just look: Good Windows notebooks are so cheap, you can have a second device lying around in case of emergency. IDK if you have the moeny for a second Macbook, whatever model...
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - groby_b 8y ago
    Have you actually brought a device to be repaired within the last few years? They take it in the back to diagnose it, come back with a sad expression and tell you they need to send it in, and you can pick it up in a week. (And that's not even mentioning the fact that most Apple stores are a zoo, and you can easily spend an hour waiting for your 'Genius' appointment)
    - cstejerean 8y ago
      If I was in a hurry I’d buy a replacement device, restore from iCloud, and then return it in a week when my original device is back from warranty.
subfay 8y ago
Tedious post lacking relevant content. The answer is simple, you could code on an iPad with a SSH client and a fast remote server. But because of lacking browser dev tools it is nonsense. This is nothing new for few years now. iPads are declining, check all the reviews, people find the hardware exceptional but wonder what they should do with this device. Finally check Apple current share price. Nobody needs locked down devices, especially not developers.
- ipsum2 8y ago
  > But because of lacking browser dev tools it is nonsense. Not everyone does webdev.
sbr464 8y ago
Check out the Luna display device if you have a new iPad. It allows you to stream your Mac to your iPad, works pretty well if you have a situation that calls for it.
arvinsim 8y ago
I will take the "inconvenience" of having to bring a "bulky" MacOS device anyday over having to recreate my coding workflow just to accomodate the iPad Pro. I chalk up trying to code on the iPad Pro as one of those exercises akin to tinkering/customizing on Linux. Interesting and fun but not really something you want when you want your tools to get out of your way and just get things done.
- brianpgordon 8y ago
  > akin to tinkering/customizing on Linux. Interesting and fun but not really something you want when you want your tools to get out of your way and just get things done. That's rich. I use MacOS for development out of mere inertia but my god does it require a lot of tweaking work and pricey paid apps to become a useable environment. * Finder is the worst file manager I've ever seen. Gotta replace it with Path Finder. * The command+tab/command+` distinction is ridiculous. Gotta buy Contexts so that you can switch between windows. * The dock is a horrid workflow for launching apps and Spotlight is terrible. Gotta buy Launchbar. * No on-screen window switcher without the Dock so I've set up dedicated hotkeys for all my apps. This requires jumping through some absurd hoops to do with Automator, or installing Apptivate. * Windows move all over the place when I connect and disconnect my monitors. Gotta buy Stay. * There's no way to turn off mouse acceleration for USB mice. Gotta buy a third-party USB driver. * The built-in firewall has no way to control outgoing connections. Gotta buy Little Snitch. * How do you live without a clickable calendar on the menubar? Need to install Itsycal. Etc etc etc, just to make it useable as a modern operating system.
  - ilikehurdles 8y ago
    It sounds more like you wanted OS X to be some totally different operating system and refuse to learn the "OS X" way of doing things. >* How do you live without a clickable calendar on the menubar? Need to install Itsycal. By moving the pointer to the right sidebar and clicking my calendar (or, more often, typing calendar in spotlight). You can also swipe left from the right edge of the trackpad with two fingers. * Finder is the worst file manager I've ever seen. Gotta replace it with Path Finder. Path Finder looks nice, but from my experience windows file manager is from a prehistoric era, while some linux file managers are decent and some aren't. * The command+tab/command+` distinction is ridiculous. Gotta buy Contexts so that you can switch between windows. Why is it ridiculous? And contexts just sounds like a subset of what spotlight already does. There are also gestures if you need to see the window overview. Ie bottom-left hot zone for me is for seeing windows+recent docs of the current application (it's called App Expose, also set to four-finger swipe down), top left is Mission Control which is the global window switcher (also set to four-finger swipe up). I mostly use cmd+tab/` or spotlight though. * The dock is a horrid workflow for launching apps and Spotlight is terrible. Gotta buy Launchbar. Again, how is spotlight terrible? I've never had a better experience in either Linux or Windows launchers. I don't use the dock either, but there is Launchpad as a visual+text way of launching and searching for apps. For me its a gesture of pinching with thumb and three fingers. * No on-screen window switcher without the Dock Mission Control does that. I've set it up with the four-finger swipe up gesture and also a hot zone in the top-left corner. Also if you want a nice free OSS app for window tiling and arranging, I recommend Spectacle.
sudhirj 8y ago
I’m doing the second setup mentioned a little bit. I have an iMac at home, and my router has a VPN option that I use to SSH from the iPad. I open all files remotely off the iMac, so Git and tools are not a problem. The apps I work on hot reload in Safari in a side window. But the lack of JS debug tools is a problem. Basically it works fine for writing copy, project planning, code review, JS, Ruby, but not so much for static languages (none of the editors use autocomplete servers). Keyboard is a problem, but because I use a mechanical keyboard on the Mac I can carry around the Mac keyboard in my bag. This works great if you have a dedicated machine at home, and want to carry around a tablet for doing tablet things (books, Netflix, reading the web, copywriting, UI sketches and some basic dynamic languages).
mark_l_watson 8y ago
I go through the minor pain of using my iPad Pro with Working Copy, Textastic, etc. when travelling light, but my MacBook is the same weight and size as my iPad Pro so sometimes I take that. I tend to do all creative (writing) workflow, reading books, and almost all web browsing on my iPad and just do development on a laptop. This makes me want to travel with both. For iPad native hacking, the Haskell Raskell app is very nice, but I only use that for short bits of new code. Pythonista is a very good product, and I appreciate it, but I don’t much like Python.

123 points by benryon 8y ago

Is there a reason no one has built a Cygwin-like environment for iOS yet? As in, is it because (1) it's time-consuming, (2) it's tricky, or (3) Apple won't allow it on their App Store?

hulahoof 8y ago
Based on the discussions[0] going on for the iSh x86 emulator[1] from a few months ago I think its a combination of all three, but mainly (3). [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18430031 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18430031 [1] https://github.com/tbodt/ish https://github.com/tbodt/ish

russellbeattie 8y ago

Alternative title: "Hitting yourself in the head with a hammer, because it feels so great when you stop."

chrisseaton 8y ago
What's wrong with trying something out to see if it's ready yet? You're making it sound like it's stupid to even see if something works.
- flukus 8y ago
  > What's wrong with trying something out to see if it's ready yet? It will never be ready, it's the wrong tool for the job. Trying to use the wrong tool for the job is stupid, do you routinely try to hammer nails with a screwdriver to see if it's ready yet?
  - chrisseaton 8y ago
    My screwdriver never changes. The iPad is an ever-evolving tool. It may become the right tool one day.
  - ddoolin 8y ago
    It works just fine right now, depending on what you're trying to do. I learned and continue to practice Rust development via my iPad Pro near daily.
  - delinka 8y ago
    Hammers, nails, and screws a pretty much set. They're not changing regularly. An iPad becoming a laptop-replacement is happening - its progress is debatable, but it's definitely changing on each iteration.
    - flukus 8y ago
      > Hammers, nails, and screws a pretty much set. Laptops, tablets, code and keyboards are pretty much set, they're not changing regularly. To code comfortably you need a keyboard, that's the tool for the job and one that tablets do not have. Sure you can add an external one, but then you've basically got a locked down laptop. Just look at the the comments here, at best the iPad seems to be capable of acting as a dumb terminal to interact with a keyboard for a remote server, I wouldn't consider that coding on an iPad.
      - delinka 8y ago
        Looks like you're intentionally missing the point. The iPad is a tablet, and yes, it's functionality is changing every iteration - slightly with hardware, more so with the OS. Currently the iPad might not seem capable of much wrt programming, but it is changing. Therefore someone tests it out periodically. And you don't have to like it. It doesn't have to be you testing the thing out. You're completely free to live an iPad-free life.
    - cageface 8y ago
      If anything it feels like it's becoming clear that iOS is not going to be a viable OSX replacement for most professional use cases without a huge bump up in complexity. At which point you have to wonder why bother with it at all? Microsoft seems to have a much clearer vision here and anecdotally I know quite a few people that have been Mac users for ages that have given up on iPads and bought Surface devices because they can use them to do real work.
      - ddoolin 8y ago
        I actually agree with you and others pitching Microsoft products as a better replacement for this sort of thing, for sure. I use the iPad Pro because I already had it, having purchased it for a different reason entirely. My only gripe with a Surface product would be the Windows part of it, which isn't THAT bad and like you said, they have a pretty clear vision for the future of it.
kristianov 8y ago
Without those who hit their heads with hammer at times, we won't know if it feels great or not.

cgb223 8y ago

If I could code on an iPad Pro, I’d finally get rid of my MacBook Pro. I think that’s exactly why apple doesn’t allow this at all...

jlarocco 8y ago
Can you explain the appeal? As a long time iPhone and iPad owner, I find iOS intolerable and it gets worse with every release. Coding on an iPad would be like trying to prepare a 5 course dinner on a kid's Fisher Price kitchen or building an intricate model with Duplo Lego bricks. Maybe possible, but a terrible experience. So what am I missing?
- chipotle_coyote 8y ago
  I am genuinely baffled by "iOS gets worse with every release." If you wanted to argue that iOS's approach to multi-pane displays, application switching, and file management, should be better than it is now, sure, absolutely. But when I consider the improvements in the past few years -- the dock, split view, drag and drop, file providers, Shortcuts -- I confess I'm not thinking, "Man, I long for all the power and utility we had in iOS 6 that's lost to us now." I mean, yes, iOS is still by and large a terrible coding environment, there are a host of long-standing complaints I have with other things both large and small, and I don't doubt I could find a few weird little annoying regressions, but I absolutely wouldn't want to run an earlier version of iOS on my iPad.
  - jlarocco 8y ago
    I don't write mobile apps, so I have no idea about the coding environment, but the last several upgrades have consistently annoyed me. It seems there's a lot of change for the sake of change; more things tied into iCloud and other Apple services; upgrade prompts that prompt over and over and over and over again; etc.. And then there are several annoying bugs they don't fix, like having to reboot my phone after tethering my laptop (a Macbook) before I can tether again.
- cgb223 8y ago

xvolter 8y ago

Since the best options currently rely on remote programming and browser-accessed IDEs, has anyone tried using a remote desktop tool, Parallels Access, TeamViewer, or VM software to simply remotely program? I can't imagine it'd be great still…

duncan-donuts 8y ago
I work with a guy that does everything in cloud9. It seems to be working for him, but I’m not sure I see the appeal.

cabaalis 8y ago

How is the experience with web IDEs like cloud9 or repl.it?

johnymontana 8y ago
I was really surprised that many of the web IDEs don't support the external keyboard in iOS. I haven't tried repl.it, but the ace editor (which cloud9 uses) doesn't support the arrow keys on the external keyboard for iOS which is a deal breaker for me.[1] Code Sandbox [2] however allows you to select which editor (Monaco or CodeMirror) and CodeMirror has a fix for handling the arrow keys. I've found Code Sandbox works pretty well on my iPad - it has a nice Github integration so I can commit directly or open pull requests from the web IDE. [1]: https://github.com/ajaxorg/ace/pull/3172 https://github.com/ajaxorg/ace/pull/3172 [2]: https://codesandbox.io https://codesandbox.io
superfrank 8y ago
I tried using a chromebook to develop about 12-18 months ago and tried both cloud9 and repl.it. I found cloud9 a bit annoying to use. It basically spins up an EC2 instance for you that you are then connecting to, so you have pretty much a full file system which was cool, but it felt like they were really pushing Lambda as the way to go. Trying to run a bunch of dockerized microservices on a single instance (which is what our infrastructure is) was possible, but it just felt like an uphill battle, so I abandoned it. Repl.it was much easier to work with, IMO. The problem I ran into was that it worked well for small projects or prototyping, but became a pain if I had to switch between multiple projects regularly. IMO, both were cool and overall fairly solid, but there were just too many little annoyances that piled up that I don't get with my current local development set up. It just felt like I spent a lot of my time configuring things or trying to hack things to fit my workflow. That all being said, I'm not the most patient person with new tools and this was a while ago, things might have changed or may fit your development style better. I'd say they are worth at least looking into.
- k__ 8y ago
  You get an EC2 with the size of your choosing that runs an Amazon Linux 2 with pre-installed AWS credentials. Isn't this the same infrastructure your microservice will run on in the end?

CJKinni 8y ago

I haven’t looked into it beyond typing a couple of lines into the terminal but I’m wondering how useful iSh will be for people trying to go down this road. From https://ish.app https://ish.app - “iSH is a project to get a Linux shell environment running locally on your iOS device, using a usermode x86 emulator.”

mbreese 8y ago
I’ve been using this for the past few days on an iPad, and so far, it’s been great. There are plenty of syscalls that aren’t working, but it’s far more functional that I anticipated. In fact, playing with iSH on my phone for a month or so is what convinced me to get the iPad at all. I haven’t been able to try too much coding in iSH as opposed to SSHing out to a server, but that’s one use-case that’s on their radar.

nickmain 8y ago

Codea [0] provides a nice Lua development sandbox and will export projects that can be turned into standalone apps via Xcode. It is geared towards game development and is currently somewhat locked down with respect to importing/exporting, compared to Pythonista. It does play well with Working Copy [1] though. [0] https://codea.io https://codea.io [1] https://workingcopyapp.com https://workingcopyapp.com

steve_taylor 8y ago
Codea is awesome. It has so many features and a ton of great examples. You can build the app entirely using an iPad and then export it as an Xcode project when you’re ready to distribute it.

godid 8y ago

I've had some luck using http://continuous.codes http://continuous.codes to write small C# and F# apps/games. I wish it were more actively developed because there is so much potential there.

0xADEADBEE 8y ago

I'm struggling to work out why anyone would want to do this. Leaving aside the other concerns, I personally find input via touchscreen pretty painful and can't imagine being able to program at any real speed. It's entirely possible I'm missing something though!

awad 8y ago
They do make external keyboards for the iPad, for what it is worth.
akerl_ 8y ago
I'd say coding using just a touchscreen would be terrible, but keep in mind that tablets aren't limited to just the touchscreen. In fact, you can plug a full-sized mechanical keyboard into an iPad (though the more common keyboard is likely the smartcover.
- ianai 8y ago
  I got the Bluetooth kinesis for just this reason. It’s ergonomic. You can pair it with up to 3 devices and switch between them with a key combo.
- zozbot123 8y ago
  > I'd say coding using just a touchscreen would be terrible Text-based coding, sure. But the jury is still out for visual programming systems, of either the Scratch (syntax expressed via custom "puzzle pieces") or the LabVIEW (flow-based semantics) kind.
  - akerl_ 8y ago
    Agreed. Basically all my programming is backend / CLI projects. I'd almost certainly have had a different result if I'd tried writing frontend (especially native) apps from an iPad
  - flukus 8y ago
    > But the jury is still out for visual programming systems How many more decades of failure do we need before we decide the jury is in and visual programming is a dead end?

a13n 8y ago

> You Probably Can’t Run Your Code on iOS Unless It’s Python What about JavaScript? IIRC React Native uses the JavaScriptCore engine, which Apple offers to "provide the ability to evaluate JavaScript programs from within Swift, Objective-C, and C-based apps". [1] [1]: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/javascriptcore https://developer.apple.com/documentation/javascriptcore

ilikehurdles 8y ago
There's also REPLete, a clojurescript repl for iOS and Android.

akerl_ 8y ago

I actually just recently tried to use an iPad Pro for coding (more specifically, I tried to not use my laptop at all for several days, fully replacing it with an iPad). My experience was that coding was definitely not as smooth as on my laptop, but I took an approach several folks here have called out: using a cloud-based VM and connecting to it remotely. I used the Termius app, which was pretty solid. I got my initial inspiration from http://yieldthought.com/post/12239282034/swapped-my-macbook-for-an-ipad http://yieldthought.com/post/12239282034/swapped-my-macbook-... (and the followup http://yieldthought.com/post/31857050698/ipad-linode-1-year-later http://yieldthought.com/post/31857050698/ipad-linode-1-year-... )

ddoolin 8y ago
I did/do the exact same thing. I have an AWS nano server purely for coding on, and I use tmux/vim on it via Termius. I hadn't consulted the internet for resources, just kinda stumbled my way through it, so good to know I'm not very much alone. It works quite well for what I need it for (systems programming) and there are even better options for web app programming. I haven't explored doing native GUI applications but it can be likely overcome. Termius is probably one of the best apps I've ever used, period. It's very well-made and well-designed and I had no qualms shelling out for the full version even though I hardly needed the extra features. I still prefer a Linux/Mac/Windows OS but this is pretty handy once you get the hang of it.
cageface 8y ago
It seems like in this case you're not really coding "on" an iPad and it's really just more of a dumb terminal. Wouldn't any device with a browser be just as good in this case?
- wlesieutre 8y ago
  It’s a very lightweight device with an excellent screen, impressive battery life, and the option for built-in LTE. But yeah, in terms of functional capability to connect to a server and type stuff, other devices would work as well. Also an excellent tablet when you’re doing non-coding stuff.

thisgoodlife 8y ago

None of the online IDEs are as good as PyCharm. Don't waste your time and money.

reustle 8y ago

The iPad Pro will become a viable "pro" device when they finally stop artificially holding it back by not allowing a full version of Safari. Edit: and of course mouse/trackpad support

FPGAhacker 8y ago
What’s missing?
- ddoolin 8y ago
  Developer tooling on-device, for one.
  - k__ 8y ago
    Yes, Xcode would be awesome.
- reustle 8y ago
  It is the iOS version of Safari instead of the desktop version. Sites often opt for showing the mobile version.
  - kitsunesoba 8y ago
    This is fairly easily worked around for sites that look at the user agent — just build a browser app around WKWebView and set its user agent to that of desktop Safari, and boom, you’ve got desktop versions of most sites. There are a few that judge which version to deliver based on screen resolution + OS, but this can sometimes be worked around by injecting some JS to force use of desktop stylesheets. There’s probably some kind of trickery you could use to spoof screen resolution if needed, too.
    - graeme 8y ago
      Icab mobile does this. It's good. The problem is, safari is better for a lot of things, and also has native adblocker integration. Would be better to be able to designate a desktop user agent in safari as well.

k__ 8y ago

Anyone tried Cloud9 on an iPad Pro?

ddoolin 8y ago
Cloud9 shuttered once they got bought by AWS and now they're built into the AWS console/ecosystem. I tried it but found it pretty terrible given a couple shots at it. I found Termius + a development server (EC2 instance, much like Cloud9 sets up for you anyway) much more reliable and easy to use.
- k__ 8y ago
  Oh I know. I use it for AWS development, that's why I'm asking.
  - ddoolin 8y ago
    I use it on the job when working in AWS with no problem, but it definitely doesn't seem to have been developed with mobile strongly in mind. The experience is stark.

benguild 8y ago

Swift Playgrounds is cool.

asow92 8y ago
I'm surprised the author didn't mention this. Playgrounds have a great deal of flexibility and can be a great for prototyping or learning Swift.

lazyjones 8y ago

If Node-red wasn't such a mess, had a better UI (less mouse/typing required, touchscreen-friendly) and a proper native runtime on ios, I'd fancy using it...

devereaux 8y ago

Better idea: coding on a Microsoft Go in 2019 Pros: - hardware: the keyboard is good, no connection issues, fast NVMe if you get the 128Gb model, LTE option to be always on - windows: WSL, stable, good experience - linux: great support if you are using the linux-surface kernel branch (only the webcams are not working - everything else works)

zozbot123 8y ago
> linux: great support if you are using the linux-surface kernel branch Meh, whatever. Is there any ETA for hardware support when using the Linux mainline kernel?
- devereaux 8y ago
  IDK. Ask around. Apparently the main kernel is also OK: https://www.reddit.com/r/SurfaceLinux/comments/94hjxv/surface_go_first_impressions https://www.reddit.com/r/SurfaceLinux/comments/94hjxv/surfac...
- whywhywhywhy 8y ago
  No one complaining about that on the iPad front. Always feel there is heavy grading on a curve whenever the iPad is involved.

mwillsey 8y ago

Blink (mentioned in the post) is a fantastic app. It's open source [1], or you can buy it from the App Store. Not mentioned in the post, Blink can do port forwarding with the usual ssh tool (ssh -L 5000:localhost:5000 myhost.com). It also provides a shell-like mode of interaction with the local file system and iCloud, so you can `scp` files around between the iPad and your server. [1]: https://github.com/blinksh/blink https://github.com/blinksh/blink

makecheck 8y ago

Programming is not just about programming tools, it is about the OS environment. I prefer being able to arrange things anywhere, and the iPad has always bugged me by rationing shared-app screen space as if I’m a child (you get up to this fraction of the screen but it must be arranged only “here”; or, you can picture-in-picture but only the specified way; etc.). My first iPad was wonderful for web browsing until web sites started doing exactly the same rationing, “locking in” some arrangement that they deemed appropriate, to hell with my preferences. Even the iOS launch screen is irritating, with icons wastefully arranged in a specific way that looks like no desktop I have ever had; and the Files app is not much more useful for navigating. The OS is about 5 years overdue for a “put stuff wherever the hell I want” capability. And unfortunately, basic editing is also nowhere near where it needs to be on iOS. No matter how many hacks they add, cursor movement is still simply bad: it is way too hard to do the kind of precise changes I need to do. Pop-up menus are overloaded. The keyboard layout is asinine: unlike a physical keyboard, there is no room between the Delete and Return keys so I am constantly committing things early that I am still editing. (In cloud-sync apps like Notes, I occasionally permanently destroy text because I accidentally do something that is then screwed up on all other devices instantaneously for my convenience. When entering something like a URL, I regularly start “loading” an incompletely-typed address accidentally because the keyboard thinks I said Go.) Therefore, there is no way I would use a tablet until they essentially recreate proper window, file and cursor management with full arbitrary resize and effortless dragging and plenty of keyboard short-cuts. This feels like a consequence of Apple perhaps splitting up the iOS and Mac teams too much: the Mac did have quite a bit and it’s almost like they’re being told to consider none of it and just invent everything anew, no matter how long that takes.

wlesieutre 8y ago
I don’t have any trouble with cursor movement, but text selection is really awful a lot of the time
- graeme 8y ago
  Have you used this two finger method? https://mobile.twitter.com/stroughtonsmith/status/1061198300878135296 https://mobile.twitter.com/stroughtonsmith/status/1061198300... I find apple has gotten bad at ui discoverability. There's a ton of ios features I learned only through forums.

underwater 8y ago

Why not use a Surface? It's built with a physical keyboard as a first class experience, and you're not limited in what you can run. The only limitation is the lack of a polished POSIX environment, but that will of course be missing on iOS too.

jammygit 8y ago
So much telemetry on windows these days...
mrkstu 8y ago
Because that 'first class' keyboard experience doesn't actually let it work as a laptop. You still need a stable surface to work on.

epynonymous 8y ago

i develop typically 3 types of things, backend rest services, web apps, and mobile apps. for me to truly rid myself of my macbook pro, i would need the following, or equivalents: 1. the ability to start vm’s, preferably locally, i use these to run persistent services like redis, rabbitmq, databases, etc. i have this philosophy where my dev env needs to get as close as possible to the production env (at least from a software stack perspective) which means linux, yet it cant cost me as much as a production env. homebrew is great, but i try to stay away as much as possible because it’s a little different from my production env. accessing an ec2 instance or rds instance to access my postgres database is a bit overkill, i want things fast during development, ie local. sometimes i’m in places with no wifi or 4g coverage is spotty, this would be a nightmare. 2. i use visual code for all development, sometimes vi if i dont have a gui env, visual code is lightweight and pretty solid. i’m not 100% stuck on visual code, so if there’s some browser based derivative of it or wsywig for coding then i’m good. visual code is written in electron so nodejs, so i dont think it’s impossible. web development, html, js, css, this can all be done on an ipad relatively well, all the browsers i need to support are available. there’s typically no compilation that needs to happen, unless you’re using nodejs modules on your frontend. i seem to remember some company providing a cloud service that allows you to develop remotely, i think they were bought by github/msft or someone. kind of an interesting area. 3. backend dev, typically i use golang, this becomes a bigger problem, surely i could ssh somewhere and compile, or use some x11/vnc-like tool since i prefer a graphical ide, but that defeats the purpose of my 1000 usd ipad. it’s not really a dumb terminal or thin client per se, i have enough compute power, i want to leverage it. plus i’d need to be spending all this money on ec2 like instances. 4. xcode, this is another major issue, i’m stuck on xcode, sure i could use xamarin, but i dont think that runs on ios yet either. if this were resolved, i could strongly consider scraping my macbook pro. sounds kind of interesting if there could be a monthly service that could be purchased that provides you with remote dev envs without all the fuss of installing, managing any of it. e.g. i write code in a browser ide, it gets compiled in the cloud somewhere, deployed, and i can access it. i can connect different services to it, and testing is fully automated. i think i’d consider paying for something like this, but it’d have to be relatively cheap because otherwise i might as well do everything myself locally. i’m thinking 5 usd a month max. i havent used chromebook, but i think it’s closer to a dev env than ipad pro at the moment, i think you can even start containers and such on it.

oblib 8y ago

This really comes back to the very old saying; "Use the right tool for the job". That's not to say it cannot be done, or won't work in a pinch. It's just not the right tool to use in practice.

bribri 8y ago

I want a touch first drag and drop editor

kkarakk 8y ago
many tried, many failed. even apple themselves couldn't get users to adopt 3D touch after multiple years of very expensive engineering. probably going to be removed from iOS devices next year. your finger has 3 articulation points, your hand has 5 fingers. the touch interface uses maybe two points out of all this complicated mechanism - it's fundamentally frustrating to use. it's fine for when a phone is cradled precariously on your palm/little finger but an iPad instantly makes you think "why can't i have a mouse or something"

jpmattia 8y ago

For those of us married to emacs: I would love to know if anyone has succeeded in using SSH on an iPadPro with a sensible mapping of the keyboard. Every SSH I tried had some intercept of control sequences, which was fatal as far as I was concerned. This was at least couple of years ago, so perhaps there's been progress. So far, the only usable iPadPro emacs is via uVNC to a graphical remote machine, which does seem to provide unhindered transmission of control/meta combination key events when using an external keyboard. Pointers/corrections/tips/advice welcome. Edit: Any reviews on ssh with Blink to a remote machine to run emacs?

frosty_sword 8y ago
I haven't tried this with a keyboard, but it's been working well for me sshing into my server and doing some small stuff with vim. https://github.com/tbodt/ish https://github.com/tbodt/ish
colordrops 8y ago
Why is everyone in this thread ignoring Android tablets? There are ports for most command line apps, including Emacs. Try Termux.
- a_e_k 8y ago
  I had the same thought. To give an example and add some context: just last week I thought of a possible bug and gap in the test coverage for a personal project. Within a Zsh prompt, I pulled the latest revision from Bitbucket using Mercurial, used Emacs (via the Hacker's Keyboard [1] soft keyboard) to edit the test suite and add a couple of lines, then used CMake to generate a makefile for GNU Make to build the project using Clang, and finally ran the test suite and confirmed the expected segfault. All of this was done locally (except for the pull, obviously) from within a Termux [2] session on a sub-$300 Android phone. Granted, the full test suite takes about 14x longer to run on my phone compared to my aging desktop and it's tedious to type very much, but as the old saying goes: "The marvel is not that the bear dances well, but that the bear dances at all." [1] https://github.com/klausw/hackerskeyboard https://github.com/klausw/hackerskeyboard [2] https://wiki.termux.com/wiki/Main_Page https://wiki.termux.com/wiki/Main_Page, http://termux.net/dists/stable/main/binary-arm/ http://termux.net/dists/stable/main/binary-arm/

hessproject 8y ago

This is the reason I ditched the iPad for a Surface. Windows isn't my preferred environment but the ability to run my normal tools (IDEs, command line tools, etc) really was a game changer. iPad Pro is great for creative workflows, but it's a shame it leaves programmers in the dust. It would be really great even to see something like XCode come to iOS

pxeboot 8y ago
I agree. Xcode for iOS is exactly what is needed to make the iPad a serious tool.
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MiddleEndian 8y ago
I find that the Surface (Book) has a good creative workflow as well since it has the Adobe Suite and Krita (and all Windows programs of course).
abrookins 8y ago
I own a Surface device, an iPad Pro, and a Macbook Pro. While I write code on all of them, macOS is still the king of development environments. On macOS, you can just work. That's what the end goal should be in other platforms. I doubt iOS will ever get there. I mean, how are you supposed to copy and paste code from Vim running in tmux inside of Blink? With your finger? Hell's bells! Windows is just too weird. If you compare them strictly from the perspective of using Vim, Windows is better than iOS. You can use Vim from WSL or a VM in a nice Linux terminal like Tilix running on a Windows-native X server. Boom, Vim is running right alongside your Python interpreter, $GOPATH, etc., and copy and paste works. (Let's set aside the fact that WSL is crawling with problems.) But if you use Windows, you'd kind of expect to be able to use more than Vim, right? That ends up being a pit of snakes... multiple Windows-native X servers I've tried have problems rendering Intellij, and I've tried to get native Windows editors like VS Code to work smoothly with interpreters hosted in WSL or VMs. Only Intellij can really do it properly, and even then it depends on the language. It ends up being just another distraction. Then there's running Linux desktop on a VM in Windows 10. I don't know how other people do this. Even with a beefy machine with two GPUs, no modern Linux window manager is performant enough to use. If you can find one like xfce that is fast enough, you end up having to manage the scaling on individual programs when you switch between high DPI and lower DPI displays. It's bananas! So purely from the perspective of access to any tool you want to use and limiting distractions, macOS is still the best. I'm rooting for Windows, but only because I have a 2017 MBP and the new keyboards are painful to type on.

v-yadli 8y ago

> Other than Python, I haven’t found any generally useful interpreter or compiler apps on iOS. Haven’t tried myself, but this looks very interesting: (A lighttable-ish .NET IDE for iOS) http://continuous.codes/ http://continuous.codes/

abrookins 8y ago
Ah, ha! I KNEW I had read about this, but couldn't find my notes on it, so I didn't include it. Thank you!

ulzeraj 8y ago

I've crossed Europe and Russia by train while receiving emails and calls from work (from Brazil) during 50 days and the only machine I had was a 2017 10'5 iPad Pro. I've ditched the laptop because of how light it was and also the fact that it could connect to cellular networks with a SIM card. So I had a browser, Slack, Fortinet VPN, ProtonMail client, Shelly SSH client, Textastic and Working copy (git), TeamViewer, RealVNC and the Microsoft RDP client along with some network debugging tools (ping, whois, traceroute etc). I didn't needed any more than that. Negative points about this experience: My keyboard (logicool) didn't had an escape key having a home button on the place of esc. I consider this beyond retarded. Also for some retarded reason cellular functions like sending and receiving SMS is disabled even while using a SIM card.

moises_silva 8y ago
> and also the fact that it could connect to cellular networks with a SIM card I never actually understood that. Everyone carries a cellphone, can't you just do tethering? that's what I do anyways. I guess the only advantage of an iPad with SIM is that is 'always connected' as opposed to click and connect to your mobile hotspot?
- int_19h 8y ago
  Tethering drains the phone battery very fast, and your phone is usually the one thing that you want to die last on you. But there are plenty of laptops with integrated SIM card slot and modem, and the rest of them can be extended with the same via USB.
  - ulzeraj 8y ago
    Battery life was an important consideration. The trip from Ulan-Ude to Khabarovsk takes 3 days on a train that might have or not power outlets on the coupe cabins depending on your luck. The power supplied from these plugs seems to take ages to charge the the iPad. I also had 2 Asus 10050 mAh battery banks with me that can charge the iPad from 0 to 70%.
  - kartickv 8y ago

a-ve 8y ago

This seems like an exercise in masochism. Why would you want to code on an OS targeted for smartphones and without any native compiler support? To those who want LTE connectivity, I don't think you know there's a device called the Thinkpad X1 with this functionality built in. Or is it that coding on tablets is considered "hip" these days?

voltagex_ 8y ago
I dislike Apple, but one thing I'll say in their favour is that I can wander into any Apple store and get a replacement device when it breaks (or maybe even a repair if I'm lucky). Lenovo, on the other hand took weeks to get back to me and then quoted $400AUD to replace the display backlight - with someone else's name on the quote. If I've got LTE connectivity, I'm probably going to remote in to some other box with a lot more processing power, rather than code on a limited laptop/mobile processor.
- subfay 8y ago
  Valid but just look: Good Windows notebooks are so cheap, you can have a second device lying around in case of emergency. IDK if you have the moeny for a second Macbook, whatever model...
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- groby_b 8y ago
  Have you actually brought a device to be repaired within the last few years? They take it in the back to diagnose it, come back with a sad expression and tell you they need to send it in, and you can pick it up in a week. (And that's not even mentioning the fact that most Apple stores are a zoo, and you can easily spend an hour waiting for your 'Genius' appointment)
  - cstejerean 8y ago
    If I was in a hurry I’d buy a replacement device, restore from iCloud, and then return it in a week when my original device is back from warranty.

subfay 8y ago

Tedious post lacking relevant content. The answer is simple, you could code on an iPad with a SSH client and a fast remote server. But because of lacking browser dev tools it is nonsense. This is nothing new for few years now. iPads are declining, check all the reviews, people find the hardware exceptional but wonder what they should do with this device. Finally check Apple current share price. Nobody needs locked down devices, especially not developers.

ipsum2 8y ago
> But because of lacking browser dev tools it is nonsense. Not everyone does webdev.

sbr464 8y ago

Check out the Luna display device if you have a new iPad. It allows you to stream your Mac to your iPad, works pretty well if you have a situation that calls for it.

arvinsim 8y ago

I will take the "inconvenience" of having to bring a "bulky" MacOS device anyday over having to recreate my coding workflow just to accomodate the iPad Pro. I chalk up trying to code on the iPad Pro as one of those exercises akin to tinkering/customizing on Linux. Interesting and fun but not really something you want when you want your tools to get out of your way and just get things done.

brianpgordon 8y ago
> akin to tinkering/customizing on Linux. Interesting and fun but not really something you want when you want your tools to get out of your way and just get things done. That's rich. I use MacOS for development out of mere inertia but my god does it require a lot of tweaking work and pricey paid apps to become a useable environment. * Finder is the worst file manager I've ever seen. Gotta replace it with Path Finder. * The command+tab/command+` distinction is ridiculous. Gotta buy Contexts so that you can switch between windows. * The dock is a horrid workflow for launching apps and Spotlight is terrible. Gotta buy Launchbar. * No on-screen window switcher without the Dock so I've set up dedicated hotkeys for all my apps. This requires jumping through some absurd hoops to do with Automator, or installing Apptivate. * Windows move all over the place when I connect and disconnect my monitors. Gotta buy Stay. * There's no way to turn off mouse acceleration for USB mice. Gotta buy a third-party USB driver. * The built-in firewall has no way to control outgoing connections. Gotta buy Little Snitch. * How do you live without a clickable calendar on the menubar? Need to install Itsycal. Etc etc etc, just to make it useable as a modern operating system.
- ilikehurdles 8y ago
  It sounds more like you wanted OS X to be some totally different operating system and refuse to learn the "OS X" way of doing things. >* How do you live without a clickable calendar on the menubar? Need to install Itsycal. By moving the pointer to the right sidebar and clicking my calendar (or, more often, typing calendar in spotlight). You can also swipe left from the right edge of the trackpad with two fingers. * Finder is the worst file manager I've ever seen. Gotta replace it with Path Finder. Path Finder looks nice, but from my experience windows file manager is from a prehistoric era, while some linux file managers are decent and some aren't. * The command+tab/command+` distinction is ridiculous. Gotta buy Contexts so that you can switch between windows. Why is it ridiculous? And contexts just sounds like a subset of what spotlight already does. There are also gestures if you need to see the window overview. Ie bottom-left hot zone for me is for seeing windows+recent docs of the current application (it's called App Expose, also set to four-finger swipe down), top left is Mission Control which is the global window switcher (also set to four-finger swipe up). I mostly use cmd+tab/` or spotlight though. * The dock is a horrid workflow for launching apps and Spotlight is terrible. Gotta buy Launchbar. Again, how is spotlight terrible? I've never had a better experience in either Linux or Windows launchers. I don't use the dock either, but there is Launchpad as a visual+text way of launching and searching for apps. For me its a gesture of pinching with thumb and three fingers. * No on-screen window switcher without the Dock Mission Control does that. I've set it up with the four-finger swipe up gesture and also a hot zone in the top-left corner. Also if you want a nice free OSS app for window tiling and arranging, I recommend Spectacle.

sudhirj 8y ago

I’m doing the second setup mentioned a little bit. I have an iMac at home, and my router has a VPN option that I use to SSH from the iPad. I open all files remotely off the iMac, so Git and tools are not a problem. The apps I work on hot reload in Safari in a side window. But the lack of JS debug tools is a problem. Basically it works fine for writing copy, project planning, code review, JS, Ruby, but not so much for static languages (none of the editors use autocomplete servers). Keyboard is a problem, but because I use a mechanical keyboard on the Mac I can carry around the Mac keyboard in my bag. This works great if you have a dedicated machine at home, and want to carry around a tablet for doing tablet things (books, Netflix, reading the web, copywriting, UI sketches and some basic dynamic languages).

mark_l_watson 8y ago

I go through the minor pain of using my iPad Pro with Working Copy, Textastic, etc. when travelling light, but my MacBook is the same weight and size as my iPad Pro so sometimes I take that. I tend to do all creative (writing) workflow, reading books, and almost all web browsing on my iPad and just do development on a laptop. This makes me want to travel with both. For iPad native hacking, the Haskell Raskell app is very nice, but I only use that for short bits of new code. Pythonista is a very good product, and I appreciate it, but I don’t much like Python.