I like how Federico does his job but I really don't like 'lets pretend iPad can replace proper computer' approach.

Matt Gemmell took the same path recently and it won't end well too.

HN is probably the wrong audience because windows and filesystems are uniquely well suited abstractions for developers who have umpteen workflows and use cases of significant complexity. However observing how huge an improvement an iPad is for my joe-sixpack relatives, I think it's worth exploring the idea of how far can iOS can be taken by power users. I certainly think it could feasibly meet the needs of specific creative professionals like writers, designers or video editors.

Lighter. Longer lasting battery. Dead easy app management. No "blue screens". Apps designed for direct manipulation. No configuration and maintenance hassle or sys-adminy stuff. Works great on a desk, on your lap, on a sofa, on the bed.

But best of all: if you're a writer/journalist/etc, and mostly do writing, web, email, reading, IM, etc, it does all you need, and nothing you don't.

It will not work for everyone but I think it will for a lot of people.

>but I really don't like 'lets pretend iPad can replace proper computer' approach.

Isn't that irrelevant personal preference?

I like that approach, and it could have totally replaced "proper computer" for me (which it does) on trips and elsewhere away from work, if I wasn't also a programmer.

There is at least 80% chance that author decieves himself too.

See file management and hardware sections and it should be obvious. In hardware section he buys razer keyboard case just to be able to use iPad more comfortably. See pictures there, if we don't know it is iPad it really looks like a proper laptop.

Jumping trough hoops to make something work does not constitute 'iPad Pro is, by far, the best computer I've ever owned'.

So? The idea behind using the iPad as your main computer is not "touch interaction for everything" but "I like the computing model" (self-contained apps that don't interact through a filesystem, no administration, etc).

Obviously you can (and should) still use a keyboard for writing longer texts, a stylus for drawing, etc.

But what I found most worrying was the lack of acknowledgement that exclusively using cloud storage has caviates associated with it. Are we really so comfortable with, unencrypted, cloud storage now that we don't even mention the potential for warrentlsss access and other abuses?

It is worth noting that iCloud allows encryption of your data using a passphrase (Usually the device passphrase but I believe you can set a custom one, if you prefer).

Apple's law enforcement guidelines[2] provide more detail about what Apple effectively has access to and can/will provide upon presentation of a warrant.

(As of iOS 9.3 and macOS 10.11.4, it appears that notes that you explicitly password-protect in the Notes app are also encrypted with a user-supplied key to which Apple has no access. They don't explicitly mention this functionality in [1] or [2], but they do imply that this is the case in [3].)

There have been rumblings [4] since the San Bernardino case that Apple is considering providing what you describe, so that users can provide their own encryption keys for their iCloud content and backups, such that Apple no longer has access to the plaintext. However, Apple has not implemented this functionality yet, and I haven't heard anything about it since the FBI dropped its case against Apple in this matter.

[1] http://www.apple.com/privacy/approach-to-privacy/

[2] https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/law-enforcement-guidelin...

[3] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205794#forgot_password

[4] [paywall] http://www.wsj.com/articles/in-beefing-up-icloud-security-ap...

Most people use the same cloud storage on their desktop or phone anyway too.

(also sp. caveats, warrantless)

For companies, they have data loss prevention policies in work-enabled devices, constraining work data to only be possible to download to work-approved (usually from their MDM provider) applications, not possible to export and able to be remote wiped from the device by the company at any point they chose.

For government, storing classified information in the cloud is already a major violation. Even data designated as FOUO requires special considerations (Although AWS GovCloud is a good solution for serving such needs). In a sense, your "private clouds" estimate is already the path that has been taken, as there are many frameworks and requirements that have been created by gov over the past few years in terms of storing certain types of information. Trying to force all cloud providers to abide by them seems like it would be a losing battle as well, and would not be taken lightly by many.

Not everything is mobile friendly yet, but do you really meet many mobile unfriendly web sites?

Most problems I have on phone/tablet are company internal products, where they literally designed the UI before the iPhone existed.

I haven't tried those 2-apps-on-the-screen things with iPad Pro. Maybe it works well enough so I could work. Maybe.

Using it to develop Python looks intersting, I'd like to know more about what he does (I assume Python works fine, Webpack compile? How is the 'drive'?)

- TV - Wacom Tablet

For most people it is a 100% replacement for everything they do on a computer, if they get an external keyboard.

Prior to the iPad Pro, I used my iPad exclusively for a number of months thanks to remoting in to my desktop. It slowed me down a bit, but it wasn't bad and I got a lot of work done during that time.

Another site is Facebook (non-mobile site). Not a wonderful experience.

Another one is my own little project, Amtrak.io. On my 13" macbook air the top 4 KPI boxes are in a row, but on the 12" ipad they are not, even though the resolutions are nearly the same.

It seems to be sites who use media queries, as I read that ios safari reports to the DOM that's its physical screen size is actually actual-screen-size/2 which is silly and annoying.

Are you referring to non-published (not in the store) software? You can use TestFlight to run software on your own devise, without releasing, and without any modifications to the OS.

I'm a math student. I hate the sheer volume of paper I have to lug around. I know the iPad won't replace 100% of my activities as a college student and as an autodidact but I have a sneaking suspicion that the iPad Pro is a solid device, localized control and overall a replacement of my laptop (primary computer) for 95% of activities.

P.S. I went to check out a Microsoft Surface, a family member got one for xmas last year and she loves it. It crashed on me within 1 minute, namely OneNote, which would be apart of my primary workflow. iPad Pro never crashed and had great response times.

I've had iPad applications crash on me numerous times - but I still think they're great, largely stable devices.

Just be careful dismissing products due to a singular negative narrative that you've created.

I'm not a blind Apple user. The recent MBP changes has me strongly looking for an alternative. I didn't make up my mind. I went out of my way to go to a Msft store and give them a shot. Nope, it failed. At the end of the day, the consumer most likely makes a decision based on anecdotes. There is no 'scientific standard' to 'should I buy a Surface or iPad'. There isn't. Being critical of my opinion is a sad thing. As, all I'm doing is sharing my experience and your attempts to 'refute' my perspective only help refute yours.

I'd encourage you to consider that I'm trying to help people with my experience. You sharing someone else's experience to 'correct' me is mean-spirited. Namely because your desire to correct and not inform.

How you approach saying something matters more than what you actually say, when dealing with humans. It's something that I'm learning as I've gotten older and I am not an expert.

For math - it's been over a decade, but I think I'd need a big device (ipad pro 12.9) and a pen. I'd want to be able to get a full page of notes on screen at once. That said, I'd be tempted. I've scanned my old notes for posterity and to save space, but it would have been nice to just capture them in digital form in the first place.

I'd also want a TeX stack on the device (editor+preview), but I'd write that if I had to. (I did pure plain TeX back in the day.)

The only draw back for me is that I haven't found a solid journaling app that I trust, so I still carry a paper journal.

If I were ever to travel for a year, then I could live with just an iPad Pro (I use Prompt for multiple SSH shells, so I can program on an iPad), but for regular life and work, having two devices makes sense.

*Note: there are duplicate apps for similar situations (i.e. three writing apps) but that's because he was switching between them for different uses.

- Readdle’s Document app - ‘best file manager’

- workflow app - like IFFTT

- iA Writer - writing app ($3.99, short writing)

- Working Copy Enterprise ($14.99) - collab writing

- Twelve South’s ParcSlope ($49.99 on Amazon)

- Razer Keyboard Case for iPad Pro ($169.99 on amazon)

- Anker PowerCore 20000 Battery ($45 on amazon)

- Apple 29W USB-C Charger

- Sennheiser Momentum 2.0 Wireless (headphones)

- SteelSeries Nimbus Controller

- Tom Bihn Daylight Briefcase

- Spotify and Apple Music

- Synology NAS - DS214play (for home server/media center)

    - DS Get, DS File, DS Video

    - QuickConnect feature with Synology (allows access to home server, in non-home settings)

- Plex (free - video streaming)

- Provenance (github - old games emulator for iOS)

    - https://github.com/jasarien/Provenance/wiki/Building-Provenance

- Timepage for iPad (6.99 - calendar)

- Airmail ($4.99 - mail account)

- Sanebox ($ - email management assist)

- Pixelmator ($4.99 - edit images)

- Launcher with Notication Center Widges by Cromulent Labs (free - url automation)

    - https://www.macstories.net/reviews/with-launcher-2-0-im-rethinking-my-notification-center-widgets/

- Fiery Feeds Premium (9.99 - rss feed reader)

- Copied (free - clipboard manager)

- Bear ($4.99 - notes replacement)

    - https://www.macstories.net/stories/why-im-considering-bear-as-a-notes-app-replacement/

- Pinnacle Studio Pro ($12.99 - video editing)

- VideoGrade ($5.99 - color editor of videos)

- DEVONthink To Go ($14.99 - doc and info management, search function is high value)

- iThoughts ($11.99 - mindmap)

- Scrivener - ($19.99 - writing, long form writing)

- Ferrite Recording Studio (free, voice memo with editing)

- SanDisk iXpand Flash Drive (SDIX30C-064G-GN6NN) (64 gb = $49.99)

- Annotable (free, image annotation)

He writes about a lot of apps. Here is a list of it all (warning all of his stuff is affiliate links) https://www.macstories.net/stories/one-year-of-ipad-pro/12/#...

Assuming your definition of IDE is limited to GUI applications, and assuming you speak for everyone. Since neither is true, developing code on the terminal on a remote server is very possible and even practical.

The author is the one who speaks for everyone. I would like to use Xcode or Atom/Visual Studio Code.

And... by definition when you work on a remote server you are not developing on the iPad!

No, he doesn't. He speaks of his own experiences.

In fact, he states as much very clearly in the introduction: "The Mac and the iPad can coexist in a market where customers believe one is superior to the other. I prefer working on the iPad; others like their Macs more. And that's fine[...]".

His experiences only work for a few people. For example, Node.js is one the top programming languages being used now, how do you develop with Node.js in the iPad Pro? Java? C/C++? Go?

A well set up Vim or Emacs is perfectly capable of writing Node.js, Java, C (side note - hilarious that you tried to use this as an example, given that C and C++ are probably written by a majority of developers in the console) and Go.

We can assume if it's working for them then network connectivity isn't an issue (which is isn't for most of us, most of the time).

Node.js is not a programming language. It's a framework. I currently develop Node.js for work, and I always SSH into a remote machine to run tests and do development work. Developing Javascript, C, Go, and Java over a ssh connection is doable, one of the best options in the case of C and Javascript.

The same way I'm not developing on my laptop either, since I use a remote build server?

It might for you. There are tons of professional programmers, many who run circles around you and me, that don't use IDEs, but Vim, Emacs and the like.

Not my favorite app but proves it's possible. also: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/raskell/id783015132?mt=8

Again not great yet because no one has put in the work to make a great version yet but it's complete possible.

Professionally? Then you are a bigger outlier than "programmer not using IDE" is.