It feels like even if Apple's DAW utopia came to pass, the iPad would still be an imperfect and less powerful option compared to a similarly specced Mac.

If you music, have an iPad, and can spare the cost of a couple restaurant dinners, I recommend picking up the USB adapter and an app like AUM ($22). There are a ton of workhorse tools available like BIAS FX 2, and a ton of apps which are just fun, like Gauss Field Looper ($7). The price/performance of this kind of setup is just out of this world. I don’t think it’s replacing the DAW any time soon, despite the arrival of Logic/Cubasis/Reason/etc, but it’s giving pedalboards a run for their money.

However, as a musician, I wouldn't perform with one, but I use forescore literally every day.

As an sound tech, I've mixed a while lot of shows on glass both as a monitor engineer and FOH for smaller stuff. My iPad is a great tool for that work. They are pretty ubiquitous amound sound techs, at least at the levels I work at.

The limiting factor is the performance software (Mainstage and Live) aren't on iPadOS, yet. Live has some bigger lifting to do to get there.

I'm a software engineer and I daily drive a 12.9in iPad pro at home...because I don't code at home (and have a work M1 for that). I originally bought the 12.9 so I could read sheet and use it as an all in one piano learning companion.

It was great for that! I did give up on Piano unfortunately and now i mainly use it as a very expensive content consumption device - which actually is still great vs lugging a 15in "work" laptop when I travel just so I can watch netflix.

It said that if the iPad was a Macbook, all would be well. But if it was a large iPhone, it would set back tablet/mobile computing a decade.

I think it ended up being a little dramatic, but I agree that the iPad being as shackled as its been has been a net negative for computing.

...well the war on general purpose computing is on, so, unfortunately, the iOS/Android model is "the future". It won't be long until macOS and Windows are just as shackled. Things are definitely moving in that direction right now.

> The moment macOS is shackled any more

I hadn't really noticed it being "shackled" at all. What do you mean?

"I want to code on a tablet" is a pretty niche market.

The M1+ iPad Pros are pretty good digital creation devices. Lots of photographers use them in their workflows now. Doing a quick (but still high quality) edit at an event, so the customer has something to share immediately is a huge value add.

At least, this is how I see it. And while I use my iPP all the time, with kbd & pencil, I would like to bang out a chunk of Python once in a while or write some lisp --- there are 'ways' to do this, they're just clunky.

I'd like to write apps for the iPP, too. But I don't have the required 'development system' (a Mac), and the Swift environment that was recently announced seems more like a playground that a dev environment.

As for moving files around -- I find using Google Drive is the easiest cross-platform way to do this; but yes, it's mainly into the iPP, except for pictures & videos.

Exactly. My iPP is a "personal media consumption device" - anything beyond that is a bonus.

Last time I had a tablet, it was the Nexus 7-inch (the screen size of modern phones) and my GF’s surface tablet with 2-4GB of RAM running an entire desktop Windows experience which should be prohibited by law. This along with me seeing some relatives having iPads across the years for web browsing and email, I never felt they’d be useful for much of anything at all.

However, yesterday I managed to mix some music creating a nice melody, edit some of my best photos in Lightroom, annotate PDFs for my thesis’ literature review while copying notes into MS Word, and use it as a second display to my M1 Macbook Air with the sidecar function and it’s been wonderful. The main reason I got it for, however, is the 20€ apple pencil alternative I ordered for my creative drawing and for illustrating my blog.

So far it’s frankly amazing, particularly considering the little money I’ve spent. However, stretching its abilities to coding or anything else seriously productive is definitely asking to have some unnecessary difficulties in life. Especially when you spend so much money for expensive models.

I guess common sense by now would imply that if you want to do serious work, just get a laptop instead.

But be very cautious if you need to integrate multiple applications and maybe even those not on the iPad (like Visual Studio Code), having to restort to web interfaces or remote computing apps, terminals... Stuff exists for all of this but it's going to get progressively more painful from my experience, the more involved and "not in this single app" your workflow is.

If you stay like 95% of the time on the iPad and a very few apps in a very basic workflow (like bring a CAD drawing to the iPad before you head out), sure that's a good iPad Pro use, I think!

It’s a tool that’s really good for some things but not for others. Unfortunately, it’s the software, and not the hardware, that’s holding it back.

https://9to5mac.com/2023/05/24/final-cut-for-ipad-limitation...

So it’s not good as a work machine…apart from most jobs. Most jobs are email and documents. If you’re on the move a lot then it’s a good device for those jobs. Jobs which require a lot of computing power, large screens, input devices other than a keyboard and touch screen, are definitely the minority.

Just opening a new tab on a browser is tedious, and if you deal with a lot of intranet tools, this is the very basics of productivity.

This statement is true if you use any machine other than the one you are used to, so this makes little sense. My Windows shortcuts and Linux shortcuts do not match my MacOS shortcuts. I have to use all three OSes at my job.

It sometimes feel like an unspoken taboo, but windows tablets are a thing. Or Chromebooks if there is a strong need for mobile app support.

There is a persistent top-level button in Safari's toolbar to open a new tab. I don't know how tedious that is.

You could technically do "most jobs" on a cheap Android tablet with Chrome and a Bluetooth keyboard if you wanted. You could be a developer who uses Repl.it on your Xbox for all I know. Rationalizing poor software for less complicated jobs seems like a reductive slope to me though.

Every 6 months or so I try to use my iPad as a MacBook replacement for work for a day. It just, doesn’t work.

Every time I’ve come up against a limitation.

The iOS version of a tool is missing some critical functionality. Moving things between apps is a hassle. Multi-tasking is a hassle. Etc. Etc.

I’ll probably keep occasionally trying, and the iPad Pro is a great tablet. But it’s a hassle even for an “email and documents” worker.

This part is a straw man. When the iPad was first introduced in 2010, there was an iPad stand, keyboard contraption that SJ showed off. The iPad has always supported Bluetooth keyboards.

> This is before we get into the comical evolution from "You just need the touchscreen" to "Actually physical keys are good for long typing" iPad and a keyboard case, to "oh actually a cursor would be useful to do real work" to full blown iPad + trackpad case awkward laptop form factor.

I don't find it surprising; the windows tablets before the iPad suffered from so much software presuming there was a keyboard and a mouse pointer that they were bad user experiences the moment you tried to do without.

The iPad… I remember some of the rumour mills putting out an idea of what it would look like in advance, where it was straight up running macOS X. If it had done that, it would've sucked for all the same reasons: fat fingers on UI that presumed the fine control of a mouse pointer, or that presumed context menus were easy with a right click (or command + left click; I'm not sure how rapidly or when single-button mice disappeared from the Apple world).

It still feels like it has some problems with apps that assume iPhones are the only thing that matters.

The system preferences redesign is the first thing that has bugged me (I moved to Mac around 2019). There was no need at all and because they use Catalyst, the icons, and the text are tiny.

But their ads and keynotes are convincing, so I can't blame people falling for it! There's this weird juxtaposition of a terrible productivity machine combined with some mature, amazing and easy to use software in the demos, and Apple makes it look like iPads can be deeply embedded in your workflow and people have fun and laugh as that tiny device with its M1 CPU is a heavy lifter even for 4K and professional audio mixing.

And everything looks good at first sight. Until you reach the final 5% of usage where you either 1) need to interact with other software, 2) other storages like a Mac main storage, NAS, Samba, NFS drive, personal cloud etc, or 3) just somehow move out of (and back into) that sandboxed app for any reason. Then everything falls apart. Yes, even with that Files app.

There are tools and methods to exit the sandboxed app (share sheets omg all the share sheets) but it's just painted with bold letters all over the place that this is not what iPadOS was designed for from the ground up, but it's in fact still just a smartphone OS with a brand change and some special purpose features added on top that you can run on a device with a large display.

When Apple announced the iPadOS brand, I thought "Wow they finally get it" but I don't think they can figure this one out. They've had so many years now and we still have articles like these. I want them to figure it out because a slick system with optional keyboard and mouse sounds great to me.

I’m really pleased with my $4K MacBook Pro M2, really amazing device. but after 3-4 years of chromeos before that, I’d trade it for a $1000 i7 Chromebook in a heartbeat, if it wasn’t for darn local LLMs. They’re not even good or fast but I need them professionally.

Highly underrated indeed.

I imagine most employees who get by in cloud docs (Google/Microsoft/etc.) and don't really open apps other than browsers can learn to be comfortable with an iPad, but many people don't want to. I have friends who refuse to even learn to use a trackpad on Macbook because they are so set in their ways.

I already see this with juniors/students/kids that grew up using nothing but mobile devices, tablets, and chromebooks with GSuite. They don't know what a file is.

They don't want iPads to cannibalize their Macs. They then kneecap iPads accordingly.

They've figured it out long since, but they're making more profit as it is now.

Yes, you weren't going to do any actual CAD work and still need a workstation in the office, but as a digital notebook, it's excellent.

It also works well for showing photos to clients. Clearly it’s valuable to at least some professionals.

You seem to just acknowledge the author's point that Apple's marketing is false.

Yet you shame if him for not knowing it. Seems like this article is useful for people still thinking of this.

The form factor is incredible.

I did this a few years ago, used iPad+vps for personal work. As a backend developer mostly, it was not hard.

Then had to switch back as I got into gamedev but miss the form factor of iPad so much. For some reason, it seemed to inspire me at odd hours and places to code.

Now I am back in market for a new machine. Debating hard to give up projects that cannot be done easily on iPad. So that I can get iPad and VPS again. It sounds crazy to limit your curiosity but it’s just incredible machine.

I think it’s combination of media consumption focus, responsiveness and super light to hold for reading or writing.

When I bought it, I was going to use it just for reading and drawing. But it was with me all the time so I bought keyboard too and started ssh into my virtual machines for light work. Eventually, I was using it for programming more than drawing or reading.

And even with the iPad, there is always this friction when context switching from keyboard to pencil. I either use it in tablet mode (touch and pencil) or writing mode (and I always want some pointing device then).

If only I could find a graphic tablet similar to the apple trackpad!

It’s different environments too. If I am at my desk with external screens, I want a trackball. I don’t want to reach for the screen. But on the couch, or on the go, I wish I had a touch screen Mac laptop.

I wouldn't replace it as a serious work machine, but it doesn't need to be really. Over time it will get closer and closer.

That isn't a common use case unless someone is paying a ton of money for a single, specialized piece of software that does everything they want, and the iPad only is used for that one thing. Which is a very limited subset of 'work'.

It's a 'App as a central work unit' type workflow, which is fine as long as you don't use more than a single piece of software/app to work on something.

I shifted my photography workflow to the iPad, and it's been an unalloyed success, for example. I no longer travel with a laptop unless it's explicitly a work trip.

Further, the iPad is pretty GREAT at remote access for Linux or Windows hosts. If you need to do remote admin work, and you want to travel light, it's a better choice than lugging your Dell.

Reflexive hostility to iOS is an article of faith among some folks at places like HN, but it's just not justified.

I try and I try and I try because lots of tasks can be done and I want to like it. But I run into this certain problem that I also get with a laptop. I’m going along fine getting shit done then hit a stretch of work with a cognitive load/interaction balance where I start thinking “this would be easier with a mouse.” On a laptop I can grab an external mouse and in either case if that kind of workload keeps going I start thinking “why am I hunched over like this?”

I definitely AM more comfortable with a traditional OS -- I mean, I've been using computers since the 80s -- and prefer MacOS by a wide margin. Working in iOS is different, so there definitely IS a cognitive load there. But in terms of portability and usability on the go, a beefy iPad has SO MUCH going for it that I'm willing to adapt.

I definitely also hear you about how a certain set of people are entirely supportive of the argument "you just have to get used to it; you can be productive" if the subject is vim or emacs, and then 100% reverse themselves when the subject is an iPad. Weird, right?

I literally got it for copying photogrammetry data sets, so it was useless for the one basic task that I got it for. :(

The primary deficiency of the macbook, and about 95% of all modern laptops, is the keyboard. Primarily the height reduction of the up/down arrows in the arrow key cluster. Nothing is more maddening for code navigation than these terrible, terrible keyboards. Same with the Esc key on many laptop keyboards, in which they are either size-reduced or eliminated entirely.

(yes, I know I'm "supposed" to use hjkl, but jk has never mapped to up/down in my brain, despite trying)

There are some "gaming" laptops that do the keyboard somewhat correctly, but driver support for all the RGB crap is effectively nonexistent in linux. Not to mention most of them are only FHD displays.

The market has largely failed to address the needs of developers.

My personal solution has been constructing my own "laptop" inside a Pelican case with a mini-itx motherboard, a 4k oled panel, a Drop Ctrl keyboard, two 10Ah 24v lithium-ion battery packs, an adjustable DC buck converter (with a little extra output capacitance added), and a couple of brushless fans.

I'm a developer, and small arrow keys are perfectly usable to me.

I felt this way for a while, until I turned off / remapped my up/down arrows, and forced myself to use hjkl. You pick it up pretty quick after that.

Now that the Air has that same hardware, my wife bought that instead of a Pro, and that's what I'd recommend to most people. The extra camera features are pretty worthless IMO (I have an iPhone Pro and a mirrorless for photography).

I have the Magic Keyboard. It wasn't cheap, but it's really good. My wife didn't bother, but she also has an M1 MacBook Air for laptop stuff.

I wouldn't know of course, but if I had to guess it'd say it's because of influencers and trends/fashion.

It seemed apple doesn't intend to improve ipad to be on par with Mac os. Arm MBA is the one that I'm looking for without the touchscreen. That's good enough for me.

This still holds true today. Apple doesn't care about the ipados for professionals.

I feel the same, but for Apple's UI design. The fact that the entire silicon engineering team's achievements are being wiped out by Apple's UI fashionistas is a shame. These people will find a way to make it slow again. The entire system would feel 10x faster if all animation times were cutdown by half (from 150ms to 75ms for example).

My stereotypical, effective perspective of digital productivity.

right now I'm on a touchscreen device fighting that sorry excuse for a keyboard to type; I'm in consumption mode. Not fooling myself.

Depends on your definition of “serious work”. I don’t write much code anymore, but I can definitely do my entire job using my iPad Pro. I have pretty much done my job for the last couple weeks while managing a family medical situation with multiple back and forth to hospital each day using my iPad. Built in cellular, a small and very light form factor even with the Logitech folio touch case I added, which is completely comfortable to work on…and I can pull it from my sling bag and be up and running in about 3 seconds.

Frankly if I needed access to my main rig back on my desk, Parallels Access is more than sufficient to accomplish that need, but I rarely finding myself needing to use it.