In the summer of 2017, I wanted to know what it would be like to use an iPad Pro as my main computer. I found out that it can actually work, thanks to an iOS app called Blink, an SSH replacement called Mosh, iOS 11 and running stuff on a server.
You could argue the title is a tad bit misleading – there’s a lot of thin client DNA in his setup – but it’s an interesting look at how to achieve this, nonetheless.
In essence it’s not much different from using a Chromebook, with the exception that a Chromebook has a built in keyboard and has access to the underlying Linux based OS if absolutely necessary.
I also find it amusing that we are essentially stepping backwards in the way we operate computers. Around the time I was born, back in the early 70s through the early 80s, everything was computed on the mainframe and the user interacted with a terminal. As desktop computers became more powerful, the heavy lifting shifted to the local machine. Now, we’re getting back to everything being done “in the cloud” (on the mainframe) and pretty much any Internet-connected device can be a dumb terminal.
Edited 2017-10-26 17:26 UTC
It does seem like we’re going somewhat backward, though I suspect it’s a consequence of the workstation/bandwidth dynamic shifting in favor of bandwidth over processing power. That, coupled with the fact that most people don’t want to maintain their machines, and we end up swinging back and around to this way of computing.
As for the Chromebook, I did try that. Chrome OS just doesn’t have some things I need such as LogMeIn, and the support for RDP is kind of gimped. The Android versions didn’t work well on a Chromebook for me when I tried. My iPad always has its keyboard on it anyway, so it may as well be built in, and the battery life on it blows all the Chromebooks I’ve tried clean out of the water. Everyone’s situation is different though and, if you primarily remote into *NIX workstations (wish I did), a Chromebook will get the job done though I worry about how much stuff gets sent back to Google while I’m using the thing.
That and companies realized that making profit from “desktop computing” at least for average people was not easy at all.
The beautiful ecosystem in which everyone builds his own tools and buys into a set of utilities to do work however he pleases does not have much contact with the reality of the matter and what people ended up doing.
If it weren’t for gaming these days, the desktop PC would be long gone or set aside somewhere.
It’s not exactly easier to do things “the new way” but it’s certainly much more profitable for many.
Edited 2017-10-27 09:02 UTC
Wasn’t it Scott McNealy that said “The internet is the computer.”? Turns out he was right.
Which means that when Internet is not there, you’ve no computer.
Except if you do have an actual computer yourself, not just a terminal to access remote computers over Internet.
The truth is both your computer and the ones on Internet are computers. But you’ve access control only over the former.
Edited 2017-10-27 14:26 UTC
Unless you work for the NSA.
Good for him. For me, a basic operation like text selection and copy&paste on a mobile device makes me want to cut myself.
Since when do Command-C (or X) and Command V-not work on iOS any longer? Oh, you probably did not realize that a keyboard is needed for working on an iPad, just like it is needed on a PC or a Mac or a Surface Pro.
It’s selecting the text on iOS that is such a pain, not copying or pasting once selected. iOS does not currently support mouse input, so it must be done by touch, or else by very tedious movements with the cursor keys on the physical keyboard. I suspect that is what vault was referring to.
Copy / paste is very easy with emacs, even though I obviously have a mouse on my Mac desktop, I mostly use emacs and sporadically use the mouse even when edit lots and lots of code.
Mouse is a lot more convenient though for inviesitgating code, I.e. tracing symbols / call stacks etc…
Does it —really— matter if you are doing this locally?
I have a 12.9†iPad Pro which has the same screen size as a 13†Mac laptop. Second, I use either a Apple Bluetooth keyboard or an iPad Pro keyboard depending on how much and how fast I need to type and where I’m at.
No matter though, it is no better or worse if I’m coding and compiling on my local computer or through a VPN connection. I’ve actually noted that I’ve been doing this for a few years with an iPad when I’m out and about.
Meanwhile dinosaurs keep saying that it is plain wrong to code using an iPad. Pick what you want and don’t try to force me to use the device that you choose. After all, it is the PRODUCT that you produce that matters. Not the device you create it on.
If the device matters more to you than the product you produce, it is better to get out of the way of everyone and move on to a different profession.
Then when I’m back at my desk I can sit at my Mac or Windows computers and code and compile there. Neither way is faster since everything is actually being done on the same machines without me having to lug a heavier laptop with me.
Nope. I’m a sysadmin and I use an iPad as my on-the-go (usually my main) machine. Since most of my admin work involves RDP, LogMeIn, and some SSH, it hardly matters because, even when I’m at my main computer, I’m doing a lot of remote control anyway. The only thing I don’t have is RSAT but, with how Microsoft is really fscking up RSAT lately (leaving out the DNS management tool in the 1709 build, seriously?!?!?!) I end up logging into the servers for admin. The way Windows 10 is handling RSAT (forcibly removing them every time there’s a feature update, then forgetting to package some tools into the next build) means I’m better off working directly in a server anyway. Add to that the iPad’s capability for full Ethernet when necessary for on-site networking equipment maintenance, and it makes the perfect on-the-go workhorse. Adding in the amazing battery life just makes it better.
Edited 2017-10-26 19:05 UTC
It depends on the circumstances. Contrary to what some people believe, internet access isn’t always available. E.g when I visit a client site, I’m usually not allowed to connect my hardware to their network, so internet access often takes the form of a limited-bandwidth guest wifi, or a mobile-broadband connection which often suffers from weak signal when deep inside some sprawling office building.
So yes, in such circumstances, it does matter whether you can work locally – with everything running on my laptop, I can work fairly well anywhere. But with everything running remotely, reliant on continuous internet access, not so much.
And that’s not an artificial example, by the way… that’s something that happens pretty much every time I have to spend time at a client site. Internet access isn’t something that can be taken for granted.
Even this is changing..
While you’re not able to connect direct to data centers you can build your project / fix locally (with your own set of communication tools) and then ask one of the employees from the team to handle the deployment as instructed.
Companies are moving though to cloud services faster than anyone can assess / realize today.
It’s mostly how software is done these days..
Actually, it does. Keep in mind there’s no such thing as ‘the cloud’. There’s just a bunch of hardware and software you don’t own, being maintained by people you don’t know.
One thing that would prevent me from ever using any sort of tablet device as a workstation… I need multiple monitors, and preferably large ones. My workflow pretty much demands it.
You could build exactly the same remote programming environment with a laptop that would still provide all the Pro’s, but would also remove some of the mentioned Cons:
* It’s not for people using graphical IDEs
* You can’t connect an external monitor (don’t mention airplay)
* For that matter, you can’t connect any hardware
Of course you would need to search a bit for a laptop with a great touchscreen that runs silent and has 10 hours of batterylife but those DO exist nowadays for the same pricepoint as the iPad Pro.
Why the F does it need to be a touch screen? Touch screens aren’t probably too useful when you do all your work cli, so why buy them?
I personally like a touchscreen for most personal use on my laptop. It is just nicer to scroll or zoom with my fingers and most consumption (small games, webreading, audio/video) is nicer with a touchscreen as well.
For development it is nice to have a touchscreen only if you are doing front-end development (GUI) so you can test your site/app just like a user would.
I also didn’t understand the need for a touchscreen in this users setup. I just included touch as a “requirement” because it was listed as a pro in the article.
Is the implication here that most users would be touching the screen instead of using a mouse? Do people on laptops with keyboards and desktops do that? Or is the implication that its mobile development and somehow using the simulator with your fingers is easier/faster than pushing to device?
Maybe I’m old, but screens that aren’t phones/tablets shouldn’t be touched.
No, the implication here would be that some users would be touching the screen in addition to using a mouse. People on laptops, with or without keyboards, and all-in-ones do that (never met anyone who had a destop with a seperate touchscreen).
Of course for mobile development you don’t always push to device so using a “simulator” is often another use case.
I am “old” as well, but I touch the screen on my laptop every day. It is just a natural way to interact with a screen and as a result I sometimes touch non-touchscreens as well and do a little “doh” when nothing happens. Touch doesn’t replace a mouse or keyboard, but it is a nice addition.
Much, much less than the iPad Pro, more like the basic iPad. The current crop of ultra low power Atom and Pentium branded SoCs from Intel offer phenomenal battery life and good everyday performance, certainly enough for a dumb terminal setup. Laptops based on those configurations start around US$200, and it’s rare to see one over US$500. In fact, at that latter price you can get something like the Asus Q304UA, which ticks all of your boxes at half the cost of the iPad Pro.
I don’t think you can get a highly portable machine with an absolutely gorgeous screen, absolutely silent, LTE-support, touch-screen for 200 or even 500 Euro. So either you should think about increasing the price close towards that 1000 dollar goal and get all the pro’s and many less of the cons, or you can lower the price and give up some of the pro’s but also have less of the cons. Either way the iPad Pro doesn’t seem like the best way to go.
That Asus does look like a nice machine and I agree that you could get a decent amount of work done on it, especially with the remote development environment. However it has a 5400 RPM HDD so it will not be as quiet and fast as an iPad Pro. Same for the graphics-card, webcam and weight-thickness that are all worse than the iPad Pro.
The iPad Pro is simply way overpowered and overpriced for what is needed in this setup.
I was only meeting the requirements of what I quoted from you, and that point stands. 🙂 Though I should have mentioned, there is a version of that Asus laptop with solid state storage, that would alleviate any noise issue. I will say too, having owned a convertible laptop with a spinning hard drive, it’s not as loud as you would think. It’s noticeable in a completely silent room, but the unit I owned had the drive set to a “quiet mode” that only spun up when it needed uncached data, or was writing a ton of data to storage. Cloud computing situations would mean that drive stays quiet most of the time.
As for the article itself, yes there are laptops that meet all of the author’s requirements including LTE support, and they can be as expensive as US$700 or more. Still, that’s a few hundred less than an iPad Pro, and that’s before buying the required keyboard for the iPad.
Where? Have you ever even used an iPad Pro? Do you have any idea of the kind of battery life you can get with these things (not the ten hours Apple claims which applies only to absolutely constant use)? Show me a laptop that can be actively monitoring my networks while locked and instantly ready when I wake it up, that can charge from a portable USB battery when necessary, and doesn’t need charged for a few days. On top of that, it’s stable as I could hope for in today’s world of modern software unlike that perpetual beta we call Windows 10 and without the driver craziness of Linux. If you find a laptop that can do all of these things and more, then I want to know about it asap. I don’t care about what the specs officially say, I care about what it can actually do. I’ll be nice and forego the touch screen if you can find the rest, but I’ve been looking for a long time and the iPad Pro is the closest I’ve ever found to what I want in a portable workhorse for my job.
No, it proves his point.
You need a special adaper to connect it to anything.
And for battery-life:
A useless device with extra long battery-life is still useless.
I’m wondering if the current, cheaper non-Pro iPad would be just as good for most of the tasks you mentioned in this post and earlier in the thread. Also wondering the same about the author of the featured story. Any experience?
Edited 2017-10-28 14:52 UTC
I didn’t see your reply until today and …. wow, you are rude in asking somebody to help you. I was about the write down 2 systems and look for more for you but you are going to have to do that by yourself. What you have found is not a portable workhorse, it is more like a dressage horse. Put another rider on it and ask it to do another task and it cannot do it. It is awesome that you found a setup that suits your needs so nicely, but from now on please refrain from moving goalposts that much and “insulting” other platforms.
….to do development like it’s 1985.
Maybe 1975 – especially if you use crap like any unix editor and need to use SSH to do any real work, because shitty OS that claims to be “pro” (maybe it comes from “prostate”) doesn’t expose one, so you need to download application from the app store to handle basic functionality which even DOS had. I can imagine these hordes of iPad “pro” users who nervously look for free wifi stickers when going abroad. Oh, when you can’t access the internet you’re screwed, as this fancy cloud will stop working and you loose access to all of the data.
I believe the Mosh terminal app that the author spoke of is what allows one to work in this setup, compensating for spotty or unreliable Internet access.
Still, trusting real work to such an app, and to this working environment, will only ever be an experiment as far as I’m concerned. I’d never rely on a setup like this full time, and I suspect it was done more for the sake of saying “I did this!” than for any real, practical use.
As I said above, a Chromebook would make more sense and provide a more reliable cloud-based mobile workstation (and I say that as someone who has zero trust in Google and gave up Google products last year). For that matter, an ultralight laptop running a stripped down Linux installation (perhaps based on Alpine) would be even more ideal…but then we get away from the hipster-ish notion of doing it all on an iPad for the LOLs, which was the tone I got from the article.
My thought exactly…
Actually not totally unlike how my setup would look in the mid to late 90s, a screen filled with terminals. But i would rather change profession than go back to developing without an IDE
You’re rather underestimating the power of (neo)vim.
Everything you can do in an IDE, I get in vim.
Omnicompletion (“intellisense”) with deep language and context integration, asynchronous linting/compilation, task management, git integration, definition jumping and refactoring, advanced templating and snippet construction…
First thing I do any time I’m forced to use an IDE (Android Studio etc.) is install vim emulation and get frustrated at how little they can do.
Odd definition of “main”.
Sounds more like its main terminal to access remotely its *actual* main computer(s).
Sure, such terminal is highly mobile, have a nice touch screen and so on. At such price, that’s expected, at least.
But I failed to see how being able to remotely access from some device to actual computers that allow you to program *on* them can be viewed as an achievement in 2017.
It’s not like it wasn’t already the case since decades from practically whatever terminals with screen and typing interfaces was ever made…
Not being able to do at least that on a modern device would be, on the contrary, quite an under-achievement.
Edited 2017-10-27 14:30 UTC
The author uses an iPad Pro as a DUMB TERMINAL, BIG DIFFERENCE.
Come talk to me when you can actually write a program or app on the iPad. When there are compilers that actually produce executable binaries.
Until then, it’s an xterm / thin client at best.
Still has to rely on a “real” (as in reasonably open) computer to do the actual heavy lifting and provide any real sense of functionality.
In essence, he solved a problem no one really asked for in the first place.
He could have done it by simply using a traditional machine in the first place.
I find I’m far more productive with a couple large monitors, a big honkin’ mechanical keyboard and a quality mouse all plugged into a modern linux box with a pile of CPU’s and memory.
It’s not a terribly portable setup, granted (although I can remote into it with an SSH client from anywhere), but I can use it safely while wearing shorts, and I never have to worry about resource limitations.
Sure, I can’t develop on a train, or a plane, or in the middle of the wilderness– But I’m not likely to be very focused on development in those situations either.
While any tool can be the right tool, that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to use a Swiss Army knife in your kitchen for cooking a meal.
I have a tablet, and a laptop, but neither allows me to develop at the speed I develop on my linux system.
The iPad Pro (and iPad for that matter) are just thin clients with some regular computer capabilities.
Not much different from android tablets. I would like Apple to just have a version that has an unlocked iOS and is much more close to macOS. Sort of what you can do to Android tablets with some linux distros.
Now, if Apple made their home computers compliment the devices via the internet, that would be a different story, but apple seems to be for the moment focused on laptops and mobile devices first, everything else second. It’s all about sales really, since PCs are cheaper and more powerful and their iMacs are a tough sell to anyone but people looking for great screens and macOS on the desktop.
*sigh*
If you don’t like his approach it is fine.
Everybody has his own preferences.
He shared about his own experiment and how it worked for him.
I really enjoyed reading this and I guess it was interesting for others too.
If you love reading things that are a deviation from the standard articles people should be encouraged instead of put in front of a firing squad just because you don’t like the ideas.
A discussion raising what setups work will have added a lot to a forum like this with many knowledgable readers.
I myself use a combination of a Mac book pro + ipad to do my job as an AWS solutions architect.
Others have other setups.
All is great as long as the setup is comfortable for you, makes you work day a nice day and gets the job done.
It is OK to use more than one tool.
It is OK to have different tools than others.
It is OK to have a different work flow.
It is NOT OK to be so negative as to discourage people that just have an interesting story to share.