Comment by lostgame | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lostgame | Hacker News Reader

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I am getting tired of hearing that the iPad is 'not for producers.'

I was way up there with you right up until I wrote the majority of my upcoming solo hip-hop record in Garageband with Audio Units on my iPad mini, with an AKAI MDP32 as my external MIDI device and an Apogee sound card for insane-quality audio.

Then, due to the amazing workflow, I was able to take those tracks into Logic Pro and refine the hell of out them. Nothing else even comes close to that workflow, as an audio producer of 14+ years.

I make skits, constantly, in iMovie, and even rough drafts of music video ideas on my Mini. Kids can do the same. It's so easy to use.

I wrote the 32-page business plan for my music label almost entirely on Pages with a bluetooth keyboard. Kids can do the same for schoolwork.

I use Pixelmator almost every day to develop high-quality images. The full photoshop is on it's way. There are no such plans for Android.[1]

Kids can even learn rudimentary code with Playgrounds. Not to mention the litany of great educational apps available.

I mean, I could see claiming an Android tablet as a 'non-producer' device, as it certainly lacks software of a quality anywhere close to GarageBand or iMovie, but the iPad?

It's like you haven't even used it, or actually have no use case to use it for creation.

[1]https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-13/adobe-is-...

> It's like you haven't even used it, or actually have no use case to use it for creation.

FWIW iPads and android tablets tend to not work for most software development tasks.The "iPads aren't for producers" mentality might be more of a "iPads aren't for Software producers (and some types of engineers)"

> FWIW iPads and android tablets tend to not work for most software development tasks.

It's certainly not for local Windows application development, but it's great for 21st century architectures (infra as code), containerized apps, or any other CI/CD-able scenario.

With an iPad Pro, Apple's Smart Keyboard, and the lovely Working Copy + Textastic, and blink.sh Mosh/SSH client, together with a decent CI/CD (commit code, deploy to dev) pipeline in place, you're good.

See also Buffer, GoCodeEditor, Koder, etc. Several of these happen to be 50% off atm.

Don't forget you can remote desktop to GUI things too, from Citrix to RDP.

On a conventional laptop I can run the entire stack locally.

This can be anything from "run XAMPP" to "fire up a stack of virtual machines and containers allowing you to mock up an entire data centre all on one physical box."

In contrast, an iPad is little more than an editor and/or terminal that relies on a lot of outside infrastructure to do something meaningful with what you're typing.

producer ≠ developer.

I'm a producer. I produce short film and music, amongst others.

I'm also a developer. I use xCode, Dreamweaver, and Unity to develop applications and games.

Developing - that's what computers are still for. And devs know that.

Developing on-device will come, in time. I, for one, don't have a problem with needing an extra dev machine, specifically for the purpose. I understand this represents a financial burden for some, especially considering the cost of a new MacBook. I'm fortunate enough to have had a Mac by my side since I was 14, and I'm 29 now, which means more than half my life. So for me, already a Mac user, the iOS dev ecosystem was actually a blessing. I understand, however, I am obviously an outlier in that set of data.

> producer ≠ developer.

I agree; in fact, that was my whole point :)

> Developing on-device will come, in time.

We'll see what Moore and his progenitors think. Until software is the only bottleneck, there will definitely always be lower-tier, cheaper options for the N>50% of the population that doesn't need the compute/batter life/etc. that's necessary for a mobile dev machine. My WAG is that we're still a few generations (as in people generations, not tech generations) from getting there. If we ever get there at all.

The question isn't "can I produce stuff on an iPad" it's "is this the right tool for the job", human ingenuity being what it is. Take the average $1000 phone and for most producers it's a worse tool than a $100 laptop.

> I wrote the 32-page business plan for my music label almost entirely on Pages with a bluetooth keyboard. Kids can do the same for schoolwork.

I would argue that if you need a third party add-on that changes the primary input method you've essentially turned the device into a laptop/chromebook. It's not the right tool for the job, you've just turned it into one.

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