Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake

Re:Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake by dabluecaboose on Friday June 30, 2023 @07:23AM (#36533020)

I remember seeing an editorial about the rumored release of the iSlate (yes, that's what people thought it'd be called) circa 2010.

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.

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Re:Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake by stakhanov on Friday June 30, 2023 @07:43AM (#36533181)

> 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.

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Re:Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake by scarface_74 on Friday June 30, 2023 @08:07AM (#36533427)

And people have been saying the sky is falling and Apple will force all Mac apps to go through the App Store since 2011.

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Re:Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake by manmal on Friday June 30, 2023 @07:46AM (#36533212)

The moment macOS is shackled any more, I'll move to Linux. And I suspect I'm not alone in this, and that Apple knows.

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Re:Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake by smoldesu on Friday June 30, 2023 @08:26AM (#36533659)

This was what I swore to myself when Mojave released. I left during the Catalina beta.

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Re:Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake by bamfly on Friday June 30, 2023 @09:07AM (#36534164)

Mainly DOS/Windows user from ~1992-2000. Mainly Linux 2000-2011. Mac since.

> The moment macOS is shackled any more

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

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Re:Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake by ndiddy on Friday June 30, 2023 @02:11PM (#36539588)

If you don’t have an Apple developer account and you give a program you wrote to someone else, their computer will refuse to open it unless they go into System Preferences and whitelist the program.

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Re:Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake by Our_Benefactors on Saturday July 01, 2023 @12:13AM (#36546496)

This is intentionally misleading. Running any unsigned package requires the end user to open the program through system preferences for the first time, as a “did you really mean to run this potentially pwning software”. It’s a good security practice, and less intrusive than windows UAC by far.

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Re:Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake by ndiddy on Sunday July 09, 2023 @12:49PM (#36656090)

With Windows UAC, when you run a program it opens a pop-up saying "do you want to run this program" and you can click "yes" to continue. With a Mac, if you run an unsigned program it opens a pop-up saying "program cannot be opened because the developer cannot be verified" and your options are "Move to Trash" or "Cancel". It doesn't mention anything about letting you open the program anyway. This means that if you want to develop software targeted at anyone who doesn't know to go to the security section in System Preferences when they're not prompted to do so, you have to pony up $100 for a developer license. A lot of open-source projects don't offer Mac builds for this reason, and you have to build from source instead.

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Re:Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake by pjmlp on Friday June 30, 2023 @05:33PM (#36542633)

I keep reading that every time Microsoft pushes something some folks don't like, yet Year of Linux Desktop has become a meme.

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Re:Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake by manmal on Sunday July 02, 2023 @01:32PM (#36563580)

macOS has no exclusive apps that I use, while most of the games I‘m interested in and lots of exotic inhouse tools only work on Windows.

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Re:Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake by alistairSH on Friday June 30, 2023 @10:33AM (#36535618)

Except most people don't need a full-feature general purpose computer.

"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.

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Re:Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake by GeorgeTirebiter on Friday June 30, 2023 @01:22PM (#36538776)

I am used to being able to write code on my 'computer'. That's my standard definition of 'computer' -- or maybe let's call it 'personal computer'. I can't write code on my microwave for my microwave; I can't write code on my TV for my TV; and I can't write code for my iPad on my iPad -- this means all these devices are computer-powered 'devices'. They are NOT 'personal computers'.

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.

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Re:Buying an iPad Pro for coding was a mistake by alistairSH on Friday June 30, 2023 @01:30PM (#36538902)

this means all these devices are computer-powered 'devices'

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

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