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Apple needs to open up is newish virtualization framework on iPadOS. The M1 iPad Pros with Magic Keyboard are great, but basically useless for development work.

Apple needs to open up is newish virtualization framework on iPadOS. The M1 iPad Pros with Magic Keyboard are great, but basically useless for development work. I want to use mine as a separate, stripped down environment to learn new technologies in. The only way I have found is to use it as an SSH terminal.

DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
> The M1 iPad Pros with Magic Keyboard are great, but basically useless for development work. I think that's the point. There's a nontrivial % of Mac Mini / MacBook / iMac sales entirely because of the need to have Mac to publish anything, even PhoneGap/Cordova projects and Safari Extensions to the Apple App Store.
- kalleboo 5y ago
  I don't think apple is too afraid of cannibalizing the Mac with iPad. The iPad Pros are on par price-wise with the Mac after you get keyboard cases etc, and on iOS they also get a huge cut of every app sold since you have to get them from the app store. They'd probably be thrilled if Macs were replaced with iPad. The can always jack up the price later. They wouldn't have spent years neglecting the downfall of the Mac if they cared so much about that revenue.
- avidphantasm 5y ago
  I already have a MBP for that. I want something with no/less windows and less distractions so that I can learn in a stripped down environment. Also, an iPad Pro+Magic Keyboard costs as much or more than many/most MacBook Airs.
hughrr 5y ago
I'm not sure why you'd want to use it as a development device when there is a not much heavier MacBook Air available with the same brain in it. I actually ran from September 2021 to January 2022 with just my iPad Pro as a computer for all personal tasks, which include programming, and decided that I was artificially limiting what I was doing for the sake of a minimalist ideal. iOS is just not the right tool for the job. Each Apple device has a very nice overlapping niche and a lot of consistency between them but some devices are intentionally not designed to do some tasks. iOS is fine for non power user tasks and simple automation but nothing more. For 80% of what I do that is fine so I usually go to the iPad first always. But if I want to sit down and do full on keyboard based productivity it's the MBP every time. The iPad Pro has a very special place in my heart though. It's the most reliable and efficient machine and with the Apple Pencil it's a game changer. I love to take it with me when I go out for a weekend and will sit in a hotel, do spreadsheet, organise tasks, do some drawing, watch some streams, casual messaging and emails and even video and photo editing. But not programming!
- pjmlp 5y ago
  An idea that is very bad explored is using handwriting for programming. Naturally it is somehow still a PhD topic, but imagine using Swift playgrounds with the pencil as if it was paper notebook.
  - hughrr 5y ago
    That would be horrible. My handwriting is terrible.
    - pjmlp 5y ago
      Hence why it is still a PhD issue, however I think it would be quite cool instead of trying always to fit a keyboard into portable screens.
  - emsy 5y ago
    5 people on earth would dominate humanity with handwritten APL.
  - rodgerd 5y ago
    A mentor of mine got her start working with a Big Giant Brain as his assistant - he only programmed by reading fanfold paper output and writing his code down. She would type it up, run it, and then bring the output back for him to analyse. I can imagine such a person finding this idea gratifying, albeit perhaps too much of a REPL for his tastes.
    - pjmlp 5y ago
      When I started at technical school writing pseudo code in paper before coding into a 512 KB PC with 8" floppies was common, like doing diagrams of data structures, so maybe I am biased.
- emsy 5y ago
  That’s a circular explanation. The iPad isn’t suitable for programming because it isn’t suitable for programming. The limitation is completely arbitrary because Apple thinks they can tell users what they should use their devices for. It’s “Your holding it wrong” applied to software.
mark_l_watson 5y ago
I don’t disagree with you, I have a new iPad 13 Pro and a three year old iPad 11 Pro that would be great to have better dev tools on. Pythonista and Juno are fairly good for Python development, LispPad is a nice Scheme dev environment, Raskell used to be pretty good for Haskell but no longer runs or is supported, etc. I have a new M1 MacBook Pro with a large monitor for programming, but since I usually write using an iPad, having first class development tools for all popular langauges would be very nice.

DaiPlusPlus 5y ago

> The M1 iPad Pros with Magic Keyboard are great, but basically useless for development work. I think that's the point. There's a nontrivial % of Mac Mini / MacBook / iMac sales entirely because of the need to have Mac to publish anything, even PhoneGap/Cordova projects and Safari Extensions to the Apple App Store.

kalleboo 5y ago
I don't think apple is too afraid of cannibalizing the Mac with iPad. The iPad Pros are on par price-wise with the Mac after you get keyboard cases etc, and on iOS they also get a huge cut of every app sold since you have to get them from the app store. They'd probably be thrilled if Macs were replaced with iPad. The can always jack up the price later. They wouldn't have spent years neglecting the downfall of the Mac if they cared so much about that revenue.
avidphantasm 5y ago
I already have a MBP for that. I want something with no/less windows and less distractions so that I can learn in a stripped down environment. Also, an iPad Pro+Magic Keyboard costs as much or more than many/most MacBook Airs.

hughrr 5y ago

I'm not sure why you'd want to use it as a development device when there is a not much heavier MacBook Air available with the same brain in it. I actually ran from September 2021 to January 2022 with just my iPad Pro as a computer for all personal tasks, which include programming, and decided that I was artificially limiting what I was doing for the sake of a minimalist ideal. iOS is just not the right tool for the job. Each Apple device has a very nice overlapping niche and a lot of consistency between them but some devices are intentionally not designed to do some tasks. iOS is fine for non power user tasks and simple automation but nothing more. For 80% of what I do that is fine so I usually go to the iPad first always. But if I want to sit down and do full on keyboard based productivity it's the MBP every time. The iPad Pro has a very special place in my heart though. It's the most reliable and efficient machine and with the Apple Pencil it's a game changer. I love to take it with me when I go out for a weekend and will sit in a hotel, do spreadsheet, organise tasks, do some drawing, watch some streams, casual messaging and emails and even video and photo editing. But not programming!

pjmlp 5y ago
An idea that is very bad explored is using handwriting for programming. Naturally it is somehow still a PhD topic, but imagine using Swift playgrounds with the pencil as if it was paper notebook.
- hughrr 5y ago
  That would be horrible. My handwriting is terrible.
  - pjmlp 5y ago
    Hence why it is still a PhD issue, however I think it would be quite cool instead of trying always to fit a keyboard into portable screens.
- emsy 5y ago
  5 people on earth would dominate humanity with handwritten APL.
- rodgerd 5y ago
  A mentor of mine got her start working with a Big Giant Brain as his assistant - he only programmed by reading fanfold paper output and writing his code down. She would type it up, run it, and then bring the output back for him to analyse. I can imagine such a person finding this idea gratifying, albeit perhaps too much of a REPL for his tastes.
  - pjmlp 5y ago
    When I started at technical school writing pseudo code in paper before coding into a 512 KB PC with 8" floppies was common, like doing diagrams of data structures, so maybe I am biased.
emsy 5y ago
That’s a circular explanation. The iPad isn’t suitable for programming because it isn’t suitable for programming. The limitation is completely arbitrary because Apple thinks they can tell users what they should use their devices for. It’s “Your holding it wrong” applied to software.

mark_l_watson 5y ago

I don’t disagree with you, I have a new iPad 13 Pro and a three year old iPad 11 Pro that would be great to have better dev tools on. Pythonista and Juno are fairly good for Python development, LispPad is a nice Scheme dev environment, Raskell used to be pretty good for Haskell but no longer runs or is supported, etc. I have a new M1 MacBook Pro with a large monitor for programming, but since I usually write using an iPad, having first class development tools for all popular langauges would be very nice.