I turned my iPad Pro into my main computer (2021)
lucacambiaghi.com
lucacambiaghi.com
Though instead of connecting to a remote VM, I've found it better to carry with me a small Linux device running an SSH server. This can even be a Raspberry Pi. As long as it has a NIC, with a USB-C adapter hooked to the iPad you can just use an Ethernet cable, and have an entirely local setup.
It defeats the purpose of carrying two devices around, but I find the iPad's screen and Folio keyboard to be very comfortable for long sessions, so this is my go-to setup for plane and train rides.
A buddy of mine has a Pi velcro'd to the back of his iPad Pro and just ssh's in to/from the USB-C network ports. It's honestly pretty elegant, as long as you never look at the back of the iPad :p
What a beautiful demonstration of the utter failure of both parts: The iPad is so useless that people end up carrying around an entire second computer just to remote into locally so they can run useful work. And the hardware ecosystem outside of Apple and parts of the software ecosystem on Linux are so bad that people are willing to carry around an entire separate device just to be the user interface to all that power.
The iPad(OS) is optimized for content consumption, is very portable, but has a restrictive environment that doesn't allow some of the low-level features required by _some_ professionals and hobbyists. While Linux is optimized for the latter, and though there are obviously good quality hardware and software that runs it, I like the iPad form factor.
Do I wish the iPad or Linux was more usable for my particular use case, so that I could just use one or the other? Sure. But I think that would satisfy a very niche intersection of users, so neither side has much incentive to build such a product. I'm more hopeful of a Linux tablet being good than Apple ever budging though. Some future iteration of the PineTab might be such a device. The JingPad also looks interesting.
Most of the time it is just sitting in the stand. Very narrow usability.
There are aspects of iPad OS that are becoming reminiscent of desktop counterparts but they always seem half baked.
The file management experience on iPad in particular drove me up the wall when my wife asked me how to do the simple task of transferring a several hundred meg image from her Windows laptop and import it into ProCreate. The iPad OS had some UI to do this task but it was painfully buggy and slow, and hung up constantly while trying to copy the file.
Ipad air instead of pro
Tailscale VPN + raspberry pi instead of GCP
Code-server and git on the rpi I am using terminus but will check out the recommendation in this article
Constraining myself to be productive from an ipad air has been an interesting exercise. A lot of fighting along the way but its possible to smooth things out.
The best feeling though is getting back from traveling and settling into a mac mini + large monitor setup.
The bonus is now the ipad air still gets love via universal control. I will shift over to it with my mouse and keyboard and still do things on it while using my main mac mini. Small work tasks, youtube, etc.
Then when its time to hit the road again I just pickup the ipad and go.
Here's my hardware reflections after a year of making it my only machine: https://www.reddit.com/r/ErgoMobileComputers/comments/vzs8mm...
When docked with mouse keyboard and second monitor: Runs MacOS
When on the go with touch screen: Runs iOS
Clearly the hardware is capable of it.
I've personally tried various cloud gaming setups before (stadia, geforce now, etc) and the experience ends up being less than ideal even with a stable, gig down / 40 Mbps connection.
That said, the performance was crappy enough that I just upgraded to having a console. I was able to download Halo and the campaign synced right up to where I left off in the cloud version automatically.
However I’ve really enjoyed using steams local game streaming. It works phenomenally well. My gaming pc is in my office office, and I’m loathe to enter the office after business hours so I’ve not been able to enjoy the games I like on my pc till I started using steam remote play. It works amazingly well, and I’ve played both 3D games like elden ring and 2d like enter the gungeon and both operate very well.
The hardware is already there. M1 has hipervizor support. Even the software us partly there. UTM is very capable.
Maybe if Apple is forced to allow third party stores it will happen.
It would be good if people would be neutral on buying not buying of open source software instead of blatantly pushing for not paying anything.
> It is quite pricey if you purchase it from the store
and stopped reading. A one-time payment of $19.99 for an app you use all day every day is not 'quite pricey'.
Are we looking at the same one? For me, “Blink Shell 14” appears to be €139,99 in App Store. Which is really pricey.
For the normal one, there is €21,49/year subscription fee applicable, which is indeed expensive as well, as I can use iSH for free :]
I am more likely to buy it because the authors see building as an acceptable choice to acquire their software, and I believe choice is a core component of open source.
Initial notes, drafts, watching lectures, etc is a good use case. Full document drafting in Word is pretty poor compared to the desktop application where I can insert tables of contents, references, bibliographies and integrate with endnote.
The reason it frustrates me is because it doesn't run macOS and I can thus do far fewer things with it. I bought it with that in mind, knowing that the trade-off was that it would go some way to improving my time-on-task with uni. It's been a success in that regard.
Not everything is purely price driven.
There are lots of types of workers who basically look up stuff on the web, respond to email, and maybe answer some kind of chat program. A full on laptop is really more than they need and probably has worse battery life.