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I still don't quite understand how folks could use one for most work, aside from using one as an SSH terminal or if you're an artist who can make use of the (ex
by JohnBooty 7y ago
I still don't quite understand how folks could use one for most work, aside from using one as an SSH terminal or if you're an artist who can make use of the (excellent!) Pencil. I have a 38" monitor on my desk and literally everything I do absolutely screams for more real estate. The most I can have on screen at once, the less cognitive overhead.
But, I really love our iPads for enjoyment purposes. Apple Arcade is a really nice gaming deal and you can pair Xbox/PS controllers. It's also obviously nicer than a phone for reading and watching things.
It's nicer than a laptop for reading some things, thanks to the option to switch to a vertical orientation.
The speakers on the iPad Pros are actually quite impressive as well. Not as good as the 2019 16" MBP (which are REALLY impressive) but they are very enjoyable for watching videos.
iPads are also nice for kitchen use - watching videos or looking at recipes. No worries about things getting into the keyboard, like with a laptop.
iPads are far from essential. I could easily live without one. But in our house they've finally carved out a very solid niche.
- jrockway 7y agoFor work, I basically use a 30" monitor with a single terminal showing a tmux session, so an iPad is just a scaled down version of that. I use one as my "laptop" because it's lighter than laptops, the battery lasts longer, it doesn't have a billion configuration options that I need to manually keep in sync with my desktop (that's the big one for me), and it has a built-in 4G modem that only costs $20 a month to have unlimited data on. I think it's annoying that it has such a powerful CPU but the software won't let me run my usual development tools directly on the machine, and that Safari is missing features like allowing webpages to take advantage of the 120Hz display. It kind of reminds me of being a Sony user in the early 2000s... amazing hardware, absolutely crap software. Apple's software is not crap and is generally pretty okay, but it does feel a lot like that situation to me. If the iOS ecosystem were open-source, Intel-based laptops would be dead on the floor. But it's not, so you have to either suffer a hot underpowered laptop that runs good software, or a quick and light device that only runs dumbed-down versions of software. Even though the iPad has more raw CPU power. The big things I miss are mouse support (way better device than my fingers, for manipulating web pages designed with mice, anyway), the ability to talk to random USB dongles (I run into lots of things with UARTs that I want to talk to from my "laptop"), and the inability to run things like Fusion 360. (I'm willing to change CAD software if there is something that runs equally-well on iPads and Windows/Linux, though.) (I do think it's funny that to make money, all I need is a terminal connected to a Linux box and the Internet... but for hobbies and recreation, I need software that is written by thousands of developers all working on the same codebase.)