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.)

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.

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.