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> Already I have student friends who use an iPad + keyboard + stand as their primary device for productivity work. I use my ipad for everything except programm

> Already I have student friends who use an iPad + keyboard + stand as their primary device for productivity work. I use my ipad for everything except programming (and all work-related tasks are currently done on a work laptop due to being in a highly regulated industry, for now) and gaming (besides a few games that work exceptionally well on tablet, I never got into mobile gaming, I have a PS4 anyway). All of my web browsing, youtube watching, document editing, spreadsheets etc I do on ipad. I even occasionally SSH’d into a server to fix some stuff and used a git client to push some minor edits. I also quite like ipad for animation, photo editing and 3d modeling (although I’d like to learn blender since the UI updates...), and Miro for digital whiteboarding. I’m pretty happy with it, but though I’ve tried various setups, tools and editors, I’ve not yet been happy with actually programming on ipad. Note that outside of the ipad, my preferred setup is actually a very keyboard-centric tiled WM Linux setup (i3 on manjaro currently), but I’ll use OSX happily enough (and do for work). I was never really into Apple products much, but I love my three year old 9.whatever inch ipad pro.

greggman3 7y ago
Congratulations. I'd love to only carry an iPad as it's < 1/2 the weight of a Macbook Air and it appears to be faster (runs Shadertoy shaders faster). Unfortunately even simple things I find infuriating like trying to select text with my fingers. Trying to multitask while planning a vacation/business trip and trying to flip between note taking, 4 hotel sites, 3 airline sites, airbnb, and multiple instances of google maps (oh right, only allowed one map view on iOS and one AirBnB view) ... Shopping online I find similar, it's so much easier to compare items on a desktop ATM with 12+ tabs open and some split in into separate windows. The majority of tasks I do require multi-tasking and often seeing 2-3 apps at once. Even trying to write replies on HN is almost always infuriating, especially if I want to grab some links to paste into the reply, but also if I see a typo and try to use my fingers to move the cursor to the place to edit. Maybe it's a learned skill or maybe I just use computers differently but I'm always fascinated and somewhat jealous of people like you that some how manage to avoid all that frustration on an iPad.
- Wowfunhappy 7y ago
  > and multiple instances of google maps (oh right, only allowed one map view on iOS and one AirBnB view) ... I'm not too experienced with this but I'm 99% sure this is in fact something you can do in the latest version of iPadOS. You can have three apps on screen at once too. The problem is that the gesture system for doing so requires too much effort versus just using a laptop with multiple windows.
  - dkersten 7y ago
    Yes, you can have two apps side by side and a third floating app.
azinman2 7y ago
Do you feel limited in multitasking?
- dkersten 7y ago
  Rarely. Sometimes I wish the side by side window splitting would be more flexible or quicker to access, but overall, I don’t find it holds me back. Even on desktop, while I use a tiled window manager, I tend to prefer a single fullscreen application and just switching between fullscreen applications (although my editors tend to have splits and such, so it would be similar to multiple tiled windows). Also when I’m not using a keyboard, I find touch-based multitasking quite pleasant.

greggman3 7y ago

Congratulations. I'd love to only carry an iPad as it's < 1/2 the weight of a Macbook Air and it appears to be faster (runs Shadertoy shaders faster). Unfortunately even simple things I find infuriating like trying to select text with my fingers. Trying to multitask while planning a vacation/business trip and trying to flip between note taking, 4 hotel sites, 3 airline sites, airbnb, and multiple instances of google maps (oh right, only allowed one map view on iOS and one AirBnB view) ... Shopping online I find similar, it's so much easier to compare items on a desktop ATM with 12+ tabs open and some split in into separate windows. The majority of tasks I do require multi-tasking and often seeing 2-3 apps at once. Even trying to write replies on HN is almost always infuriating, especially if I want to grab some links to paste into the reply, but also if I see a typo and try to use my fingers to move the cursor to the place to edit. Maybe it's a learned skill or maybe I just use computers differently but I'm always fascinated and somewhat jealous of people like you that some how manage to avoid all that frustration on an iPad.

Wowfunhappy 7y ago
> and multiple instances of google maps (oh right, only allowed one map view on iOS and one AirBnB view) ... I'm not too experienced with this but I'm 99% sure this is in fact something you can do in the latest version of iPadOS. You can have three apps on screen at once too. The problem is that the gesture system for doing so requires too much effort versus just using a laptop with multiple windows.
- dkersten 7y ago
  Yes, you can have two apps side by side and a third floating app.

azinman2 7y ago

Do you feel limited in multitasking?

dkersten 7y ago
Rarely. Sometimes I wish the side by side window splitting would be more flexible or quicker to access, but overall, I don’t find it holds me back. Even on desktop, while I use a tiled window manager, I tend to prefer a single fullscreen application and just switching between fullscreen applications (although my editors tend to have splits and such, so it would be similar to multiple tiled windows). Also when I’m not using a keyboard, I find touch-based multitasking quite pleasant.