Comment by jijijijij | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jijijijij | Hacker News Reader

This setup has been done before with the Mac Mini, which makes more sense to me... Or you know, just ssh into some server.

In any case, these "iPad as Screen hacks" still do not address the main issue at hand: Hardware-wise, you simply don't need the (Macbook Air) laptop, at all.

The laptop form is technically obsolete for most users, since Apple Silicone chips are very similar in Air and iPad. The iPad offers more than enough processing power, while having additional capabilities. Breaking this stupid redundancy and better ergonomics are the things Apple won't make for the sake of completely artificial market segmentation. Probably to keep up supply to the golden iOS Appstore prison and consequent double spending on not just hardware, but software, too.

Honestly, every time Apple tries to green-wash their business, you shall remember how they keep the demand for a whole device line up artificially - and its unnecessary production impact on the planet. Dear Apple, who cares about your headquarter's solar panels, or aluminium recycling rate, when you could simply give people a unix shell on the iPad, with a much, much better environmental impact? Yeah...

Side note: Fool me once... the iPad-paperweight experience is the sole reason I would never, never ever even consider getting into their AR/VR ecosystem. Specs my ass, shell or GTFO. Stallman really do be right.

One could argue that the iPad is the reinvention we don't need.

Here's my loadout: iPad Air 5 (big box sale), Pencil 2 (post xmas open-box sale, you bet), Zagg Rugged Book (eBay). M2 MBP (refurbished), 2020 MacBook Air Intel (big box open box with dents in it, runs Windows 10 on the metal). I also have an iPhone.

The iPad is for daily driving human citizen stuff: bank stuff, buying stuff, selling stuff, talking to people, paying bills, reading the news. I'm typing on it now. It is so easy taking screen shots of bills, using the pencil to mark them up, and then showing these insights to people via email. If you hacked into it, you could take over my life! iPadOS is generally considered secure, so I generally consider this device a luxury.

The MBP is for development and if you hacked into it, you could just see what I'm working on. I guess you could make a mess of my GitHub, oh no. Nothing personal on there though. You could probably guess the root password, but it's still iCloud locked. This thing is the money maker and is not a luxury.

What about my third windows laptop I lug around? You are correct, they make you need to have various hardwares to run all their different softwares. Again it's a luxury: I have it for the "need" to use "real" office.

I also have a fourth: a Chromebook with several paid Android apps on it, other Google Play movies I bought, and I do not own any other Android devices. This thing sits on the shelf most of the time, but I felt the need to have it so I could use the Google software. Maybe if I felt the need to install Linux on bare metal, it would go on this thing, it has an i5. Luxury.

There's probably a way to compress all my software activities down into the singleton MBP, without losing much security. But, I've already been burned by having all aspects of my daily life in one place. This is how I could live without luxury.

If we want to bark up the "they're screwing us over" tree, then, it's nonsense that we need to buy all these different hardwares to run all these different softwares: because that is the REAL LUXURY. If we care about minimizing the number of devices I'll buy per (5) year(s), then we need to "make them" allow us to run any software on any hardware.

TL;DR: I like my iPad, but if we lived in the EU, then they'd sue Apple to let me run Windows on it. Otherwise I'm forced to live a luxurious lifestyle of many devices.

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