I’ve been force-feeding myself the new iPad Pro with magic keyboard as my primary laptop for the past few months (why? So I can experience what kids are largely experiencing these days, and empathize). It’s definitely a “real computer”, just optimized in a different way than I’m used to. Doesn’t feel like a budget computer either, it’s incredibly powerful for something that uses less than 18 watts and has no fan. IPadOS has some rough edges but they’ve been getting quickly smoothed out.

I am so tempted to go buy an iPad Pro, demoting my Mac to a development-only machine.

Everything on iPadOS just seems more refined, more fluid and more fun than on MacOS. Everything from 120 Hz display, to instant waking from sleep, to battery life that is actually consistent. The overall user experience just seems lightyears ahead of the Mac, assuming your workflows are compatible with the software limitations.

If you have the cash, I'd suggest you do it. I bought one kinda on a whim and I don't regret it at all. It's pretty much replaced my ThinkPad.

iPadOS is indeed more refined, but not all of it - there's a fair number of very specific things that are a total PITA on the iPad but a breeze on my desktop Mac. That makes doing serious work on the iPad a little challenging, though it's still possible, but for most serious work I still use the desktop. But for almost anything else, I prefer the iPad's mobility and UX. It's the best drawing tablet, ebook reader, web browsing and netflix machine I've ever had, all in one.

Well I very much need Emacs and Unix-like environment for work, so iPad doesn't quite cut it. That said I've got a 11" Pro: mostly as a portable second display via Sidecar for MB12 but also some pen-based apps like Sketchr3d. It's nice and if you have a workflow that suits it, no doubt it's usable.

Get a cloud VM and Blink.sh, an SSH/mosh client. You can totally have a Unix environment on the iPad. It's limited, but still pretty powerful.

Pretty sad to see people touting this as a workaround solution.

It's still a workaround - possibly the most basic one for any kind of thin client there is. I want a consistent IDE as well and right now, you can't run vscode properly on an iPad.

I'm still hopeful that future apple silicon macs will be able to do local development with more grunt than current macs. I guess we'll see.

Yes you can. Look at code-server.

And yes, for doing development on the iPad basically everything is a workaround, but that doesn’t automatically make it worthless. Neither does the fact that it’s basic. I don’t get your criticism.

Well aware of code server. Again if your making a bunch of work around, it gets in the way of actual work.

With your rational, I could do development on my phone as a thin client.

> Again if your making a bunch of work around, it gets in the way of actual work.

Yes. But it’s not getting in the way that much.

code-server is exactly what you were asking for, an IDE on iPad. You’re moving the goalposts here and not even specifying why and where to.

> With your rational, I could do development on my phone as a thin client.

No. You’re taking my argument ad absurdum. I’m saying the tradeoff isn’t that bad on iPad. That says nothing about phones.

Web IDES have been around forever. They don't qualify as a real IDE. I'm not moving the goal posts. You're making them bigger to fit your needs.

Then, contrary to what you said previously, VS Code never was an IDE in the first place because it's an Electron app, it's built on web tech.

That also means there's literally zero difference running VS Code in the browser vs. the electron app save for the browser toolbar (which Safari hides if you add a bookmark to the homescreen, which also nets you an app icon. At that point this "workaround" gives you exactly the same experience as a native app. Not sure what issues you're still seeing there.)

No.

I'm talking about local vs remote development. Can you even spin up a webserver on an ipad to run codeserver? Or does it rely on an external webserver to run and build your application.

If you know what a thin client is, then you're effectively describing that for an iPad. Anything is a thin client - even your phone.

Until we live in a remote first world with everything built with that experience, you're just describing another type of platform like this: https://gitpod.io/#https://github.com/eclipse-theia/theia

Except you've made it a DIY thing and claiming that it's a the solution for doing development on an iPad which is clearly false.

> Except you've made it a DIY thing and claiming that it's a the solution for doing development on an iPad which is clearly false.

Why not? You're basically claiming that solely because it's remote it's completely unfit for development purposes. That doesn't really make sense to me. Especially with VS Code being an Electron app the browser version is equivalent to the desktop app.

Just to be clear, I totally concede that there are certain tasks where you do run into limitations, e.g. handling files is rather a PITA, but other tasks like plain coding are perfectly fine. And if you can save the former type of work for your PC then an iPad plus code-server is actually not going to cause you any trouble with workarounds.

I'm sure it's possible, but just as you say - limited, so I see little point.

It's no question that a "real" Unix system is more powerful, but a VPS has been surprisingly usable to me. Many commandline tasks are more enjoyable on the iPad than on my desktop. The rest, I just fall back to my desktop. Try it - you might be surprised how powerful it is.

Thanks for the tip, I might try it at some point, would need the keyboard folio first tho.

Am no stranger to bizarre setups. Have used remote shell on Palm PDA with foldout keyboard over IRDA via cellphone GSM modem; now this was cumbersome setup. Had Agenda VR3 Linux PDA and coded on it. It's really comfy with mb12 now tho and I like network independence.

I code on the planes all the time, somehow it's really easy to get in the flow. So I like how this setup works on the foldout tray and without network to count on. Doing tons of field work too. In late January had to code for 6 hours with my ass on a tunnel tarmac north of Trondheim. Though of course most of the time I work within network range.

The "best" CPU that comes in that lineup is the Intel Core i7-7Y75.

I have a GPD P2 Max[0] which also has 16GiB of ram and a Intel Core m3-8100Y...

Not to brag but my CPU does seem to bench higher[1][2], and for me it can be painfully slow at times.. Though perhaps the OS is doing me no favours (Sway+Arch/Chromium)

[0]: http://gpd.hk/gpdp2max

[1]: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/Intel-i7-7Y75-vs-Intel-...

[2]: https://askgeek.io/en/cpus/vs/Intel_Core-m3-8100Y-vs-Intel_C...

I think the 12" 2017 model with the i5 was the best one. The i7 got a little hot, and the m3 was pretty slow. The i5 (I'm still using it today and it works great) doesn't suffer from heat issues nearly as bad as the i7.

I've used some fanless Ideapad before this with Core M as well, let's just say there is no comparison. With that one a tiling WM was very much a necessity.

My office PC is a very generously specced desktop, but for user interaction tasks like coding, browsing etc there is no appreciable difference with MB12.