3 ms·

They’ll need something to justify those prices. I bought a 12.9” in 2018 and wouldn’t do it again even at the old price.

Terretta 3y ago
Counterbalancing anecdote: I've purchased every 12.9" iPad Pro model with my own money, and will keep doing so. There's no better mobile daily driver computer value for dollar available today.
- djfergus 3y ago
  Fascinating, please tell us more? My muscle memory is tied to keyboards and multiple windows so I just couldn’t get productive on an iPad and found the 12.9 a bit heavy and awkward for a couch computer. I see where the money went: M2, amazing screen but it’s not my first choice. Curious about your usage. eg how do you use the (janky imho) windowing and multitasking?
  - infecto 3y ago
    The thing I dislike the most is the keyboard shortcuts and workflows are just different enough in iOS that its not quite interchangable enough.
    - pseudosavant 3y ago
      That’s been my experience. Death by a thousand paper cuts from iOS reminding you how it isn’t a “real” OS like Mac or Windows.
      - microtonal 3y ago
        Which is not surprising. Apple wants you to buy an iPad and a MacBook.
  - Terretta 3y ago
    Use Apple's Magic Keyboard with backlit keys and trackpad (which is also a USB-C charging dock). For multi-tasking, use Stage Manager to have thumbs of screens along the left side of the screen, and use the window affordances to resize windows with overlaps to have 2 or 3 applications open at the same time per thumbnail (a thumbnail isn't an app, it's a space or desktop). Windows can 1/2 overlap the thumbs, so it doesn't take much screen space, and you can also overlap or leave showing the dock across the bottom. This also works with a second monitor which can extend the desktop space instead of mirroring to it, then you can have a half dozen apps open at once. Of course the killer feature is 5G, all day battery, and paper-notebook level of portability.
- wlesieutre 3y ago
  I do really like it as a paper-sized replacement for handwritten notes and sketching, but the folio keyboard is junk (material starts peeling quickly, and the whole thing stopped working not long after the one year warranty expired). Maybe the magic keyboard is better built, but that's another $350 on top of an expensive tablet. My bad experience with the cheaper (but still $200) keyboard accessory has probably had an outsized effect on how I feel about the product as a whole. If you want to draw and watch movies and read emails it's great for that. I've given up on using it much for productivity, where its most powerful function is having a remote desktop client if I need to connect to a real computer. Personally I spent the extra money thinking "I could do some real work on this" but unless your work is mostly marking up PDFs (it's really great for that) and sending plaintext emails I can't recommend it. The only work tasks I use mine for regularly anymore are quick sketches/markups (synced via OneNote and screenshot into an email that I'm writing on the computer) and quickly flipping through my inbox to either deleting or flag new messages, again for me to actually deal with on the computer.
  - transpute 3y ago
    Magic Keyboard is in a class by itself, sometimes it can be found on eBay at a reasonable price.
  - ako 3y ago
    Why limit yourself to an iPad specific keyboard? I use low-profile mechanical keyboards which offer much better typing experience, and are just as portable. When traveling the Nuphy air 75 fits in any bag, at home I pair it with a slightly larger keychain k15 pro, due to its ergonomic layout.
    - wlesieutre 3y ago
      How’s that work with the iPad on your lap?
      - ako 3y ago
        Not, but I don’t do much typing on my lap anyways, typing is usually on a desk or table, when using an iPad on my lap it’s mostly for media consumption, better without a keyboard.
- justinclift 3y ago
  The MS Surface tablets at least used to be pretty good, and you're not locked to running just "app store" approved software. So, Blender runs on on them, unlike on IPads. :/ That being said, I haven't used a Surface tablet in years so I have no idea if they're still as good as they used to be.
  - twoWhlsGud 3y ago
    I'm writing this reply on a Surface Pro 9 - the hardware is underpowered but is also the only reasonable option if you need a tablet that runs a "real" PC OS. But MS has had a heck of a time convincing ISV's to make software for the platform - and even apps (like Adobe's Lightroom) that have tablet modes hide them away - so almost no one knows about them. iPads are better at being tablets, but can't run apps like Lightroom (the non cloudclown version) at all, so it's definitely a tradeoff. For the last class I taught, I ended up using both the Surface and an iPad Pro (10"). The Surface was used in situations where I needed a full OS (as it turned out running VM's was part of that) and the iPad got used during lecture as it was simply superior for presenting slides with sketched overlays in real time.
    - justinclift 3y ago
      Thanks, yeah that makes sense. :) If you could only pick a single tablet instead of being able to use two, which one would you have gone with?
- rgarrett88 3y ago
  >computer Has always felt like a stretch to me for a device I'm not allowed to run my own code on.
  - nl 3y ago
    This of course hasn't been true for years, eg: http://omz-software.com/pythonista/index.html http://omz-software.com/pythonista/index.html And you can run a C compiler (or anything) inside https://ish.app/ https://ish.app/ too.
- TMWNN 3y ago
  >Counterbalancing anecdote: I've purchased every 12.9" iPad Pro model with my own money, and will keep doing so. >There's no better mobile daily driver computer value for dollar available today. I experimented with using an iPad as a daily driver (web browser plus mosh/ssh sessions) some years ago, and iOS constantly unloading apps (even when briefly switching away from them), and not restoring state exactly, drove me nuts. Has iOS improved on this?
  - wlesieutre 3y ago
    Alas, still sucks. Although my 2018 model has 4 GB of memory while the 2022 is now 8 (or 16 if you buy 1 or 2 TB version). So maybe that helps. There’s a special entitlement for apps to request additional RAM so I would hope that having more memory means more apps can stay resident, since most apps aren’t going to request extra RAM. But iOS seems really aggressive about this even when you wouldn’t think it should be a problem so I half expect it to know you have 12 GB available and still kill recently used apps.
- kposehn 3y ago
  I've been using a 12.9" M2 iPad Pro as a daily driver for six months. It is almost perfect - the only big issue I have is a problem in WebKit where a two-finger-tap on a trackpad procs both the system contextual menu and the web app context menu. It makes using VSCode, Google Docs, etc. highly annoying and remains unresolved. Here's the issue in bugzilla: https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=260722 https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=260722 Outside of that, I love using it and actively prefer it over a regular desktop OS for all tasks outside of software development (and with the bug fixed even that would be better)

Terretta 3y ago

Counterbalancing anecdote: I've purchased every 12.9" iPad Pro model with my own money, and will keep doing so. There's no better mobile daily driver computer value for dollar available today.

djfergus 3y ago
Fascinating, please tell us more? My muscle memory is tied to keyboards and multiple windows so I just couldn’t get productive on an iPad and found the 12.9 a bit heavy and awkward for a couch computer. I see where the money went: M2, amazing screen but it’s not my first choice. Curious about your usage. eg how do you use the (janky imho) windowing and multitasking?
- infecto 3y ago
  The thing I dislike the most is the keyboard shortcuts and workflows are just different enough in iOS that its not quite interchangable enough.
  - pseudosavant 3y ago
    That’s been my experience. Death by a thousand paper cuts from iOS reminding you how it isn’t a “real” OS like Mac or Windows.
    - microtonal 3y ago
      Which is not surprising. Apple wants you to buy an iPad and a MacBook.
- Terretta 3y ago
  Use Apple's Magic Keyboard with backlit keys and trackpad (which is also a USB-C charging dock). For multi-tasking, use Stage Manager to have thumbs of screens along the left side of the screen, and use the window affordances to resize windows with overlaps to have 2 or 3 applications open at the same time per thumbnail (a thumbnail isn't an app, it's a space or desktop). Windows can 1/2 overlap the thumbs, so it doesn't take much screen space, and you can also overlap or leave showing the dock across the bottom. This also works with a second monitor which can extend the desktop space instead of mirroring to it, then you can have a half dozen apps open at once. Of course the killer feature is 5G, all day battery, and paper-notebook level of portability.
wlesieutre 3y ago
I do really like it as a paper-sized replacement for handwritten notes and sketching, but the folio keyboard is junk (material starts peeling quickly, and the whole thing stopped working not long after the one year warranty expired). Maybe the magic keyboard is better built, but that's another $350 on top of an expensive tablet. My bad experience with the cheaper (but still $200) keyboard accessory has probably had an outsized effect on how I feel about the product as a whole. If you want to draw and watch movies and read emails it's great for that. I've given up on using it much for productivity, where its most powerful function is having a remote desktop client if I need to connect to a real computer. Personally I spent the extra money thinking "I could do some real work on this" but unless your work is mostly marking up PDFs (it's really great for that) and sending plaintext emails I can't recommend it. The only work tasks I use mine for regularly anymore are quick sketches/markups (synced via OneNote and screenshot into an email that I'm writing on the computer) and quickly flipping through my inbox to either deleting or flag new messages, again for me to actually deal with on the computer.
- transpute 3y ago
  Magic Keyboard is in a class by itself, sometimes it can be found on eBay at a reasonable price.
- ako 3y ago
  Why limit yourself to an iPad specific keyboard? I use low-profile mechanical keyboards which offer much better typing experience, and are just as portable. When traveling the Nuphy air 75 fits in any bag, at home I pair it with a slightly larger keychain k15 pro, due to its ergonomic layout.
  - wlesieutre 3y ago
    How’s that work with the iPad on your lap?
    - ako 3y ago
      Not, but I don’t do much typing on my lap anyways, typing is usually on a desk or table, when using an iPad on my lap it’s mostly for media consumption, better without a keyboard.
justinclift 3y ago
The MS Surface tablets at least used to be pretty good, and you're not locked to running just "app store" approved software. So, Blender runs on on them, unlike on IPads. :/ That being said, I haven't used a Surface tablet in years so I have no idea if they're still as good as they used to be.
- twoWhlsGud 3y ago
  I'm writing this reply on a Surface Pro 9 - the hardware is underpowered but is also the only reasonable option if you need a tablet that runs a "real" PC OS. But MS has had a heck of a time convincing ISV's to make software for the platform - and even apps (like Adobe's Lightroom) that have tablet modes hide them away - so almost no one knows about them. iPads are better at being tablets, but can't run apps like Lightroom (the non cloudclown version) at all, so it's definitely a tradeoff. For the last class I taught, I ended up using both the Surface and an iPad Pro (10"). The Surface was used in situations where I needed a full OS (as it turned out running VM's was part of that) and the iPad got used during lecture as it was simply superior for presenting slides with sketched overlays in real time.
  - justinclift 3y ago
    Thanks, yeah that makes sense. :) If you could only pick a single tablet instead of being able to use two, which one would you have gone with?
rgarrett88 3y ago
>computer Has always felt like a stretch to me for a device I'm not allowed to run my own code on.
- nl 3y ago
  This of course hasn't been true for years, eg: http://omz-software.com/pythonista/index.html http://omz-software.com/pythonista/index.html And you can run a C compiler (or anything) inside https://ish.app/ https://ish.app/ too.
TMWNN 3y ago
>Counterbalancing anecdote: I've purchased every 12.9" iPad Pro model with my own money, and will keep doing so. >There's no better mobile daily driver computer value for dollar available today. I experimented with using an iPad as a daily driver (web browser plus mosh/ssh sessions) some years ago, and iOS constantly unloading apps (even when briefly switching away from them), and not restoring state exactly, drove me nuts. Has iOS improved on this?
- wlesieutre 3y ago
  Alas, still sucks. Although my 2018 model has 4 GB of memory while the 2022 is now 8 (or 16 if you buy 1 or 2 TB version). So maybe that helps. There’s a special entitlement for apps to request additional RAM so I would hope that having more memory means more apps can stay resident, since most apps aren’t going to request extra RAM. But iOS seems really aggressive about this even when you wouldn’t think it should be a problem so I half expect it to know you have 12 GB available and still kill recently used apps.
kposehn 3y ago
I've been using a 12.9" M2 iPad Pro as a daily driver for six months. It is almost perfect - the only big issue I have is a problem in WebKit where a two-finger-tap on a trackpad procs both the system contextual menu and the web app context menu. It makes using VSCode, Google Docs, etc. highly annoying and remains unresolved. Here's the issue in bugzilla: https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=260722 https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=260722 Outside of that, I love using it and actively prefer it over a regular desktop OS for all tasks outside of software development (and with the bug fixed even that would be better)