Im Carlos from Blink Shell, mentioned in a few comments here. Wanted to give my 2c as this is something I have been thinking about a lot. Usage and expectations have been changing a lot for these devices:
- At first (iPad2 & 3 years), for those who already had remote machines of some kind, the goal was to simply have a decent terminal on mobile devices to connect to them. The appeal was very clear and I think for a lot of people it offered a different context to do stuff. It still does.
- Things start to grow with iPad/iPhone, Apple was heavily investing on the hardware, and that brought another wave of users. The goal changed, it was not enough to "connect" anymore, but to do real work from these devices, for hours. The talk was to replace your laptop with an iPad, may sound familiar. We thought this wave was going to be big... but it never really materialized. Blame it on lack of software? The OS? M1? ...
- And so I think we are now on a third generation. I don't think the goal is to replace anything anymore. I see the next wave as a mix of the previous two. I want to work from anywhere, access my tools from wherever I am, access the code for my projects, pushing changes fast, etc. And it may be in my desktop computer, or in my coworker's laptop, on my iPad or my phone. Codespaces or in our case Blink Build are different approaches to do that. It is still getting started.
I think we are entering a world similar to what Rob Pike mentioned in this interview (https://usesthis.com/interviews/rob.pike/). The idea is that "state" is not something that you carry all day with you, but it is provided to you when you need it, connecting applications and dev environments from anywhere. That "state" may not necessarily be the Cloud, it will be computers in your office, or powerful remote environments somewhere, etc...
So yeah, if you were expecting Xcode, IntelliJ and XXX coming to an iPad and replacing your laptop, that may already be behind us and maybe even killed on phase 2. And although these apps may not play well in this new environment, it is worth questioning if it is more fault of the environment where we are headed or of the apps themselves. I want to think that Codespaces, Fleet, GitPod, Build, and your multiple machines wherever they are, will all play a part on that.
I’m one of the (maybe few?) developers that actually use an iPad as their main computing device for work, play and everything in between. First and foremost, I’d like to thank Carlos for the amazing work on the blink shell. The fact that this app exists and that it allows me to launch a VSCode instance on the iPad in an standalone way is a key part of my setup currently. Tools like tailscale, fish, mosh (courtesy of blink on the client side also) zellij, scudo and nomachine among other utilities are what have enabled me to fulfill this “dream” or idea of using the iPad as my “sole” device.
Now, it is true that this is not for everyone, I mostly do web stuff (Frontend, Backend, DevOps) and for me, having VSCode, a browser and being able to run everything on a server or remote computer that I can control via the terminal (or with a remote admin interface like the cockpit project) behind the scenes is more than enough; Also, I’ve put some considerable money in peripherals, apps, on my own networking homelab and its redundancy measures to keep everything running smooth no matter where I am or what complications might arise…
I mention this because I think it is important to clarify that the iPad (at least for now) cannot replace a computer, as a matter of fact I believe that no matter the workflow, (unless you ONLY use a browser) you’ll need a computer alongside the iPad at some point. Such computer can be a home server, a clamshell macbook connected to a smart outlet or some rented VPS, remote desktop or whatever, but the enticing part (at least for me) is for these computers to be “behind the scenes” infrastructure accessed from the iPad, where most of the real (user-facing) work is done, with its apps, within its ecosystem and in a beautiful, very portable and capable device.
Please Carlos, keep the good work with Blink this is the best app for iOS/iPadOS out there!
There is a visual studio port for iPad OS. Works great. I get your point and I use it basically for the same purpose. Reading books and having a development IDE next to it to run some samples and learn. I also use it for my other workflows like diagrams, emails, plans , docs, teams chat etc. (I use wireless one). I am an architect who loves to code.
I got a Surface pro x for the same reason. That and, I wanted a touch screen for drawing diagrams. It is kind of the opposite problem. All the software runs (native ARM versions took a while to trifle in) and with WSL2, I have a real Linux on a lightweight VM. The problem is the SQ2 processor is so painfully slow.
Oh, no XCode. But I don't consider lacking XCode to be a problem.
First, you didn't mention the #1 reason to code on iPad Pro + Magic Keyboard: LTE data modem. Second, your "as far as I can tell" dismissed the professional coding approach:
> But if you need to run Xcode, VSCode, WebStorm, or Intellij than as far as I can tell the iPad is a no go.
For VSCode, try Blink Code in the Blink shell app:
"VSCode is a very powerful code editor which has become the tool of choice for a lot of developers in record time. ... The goal of a shell is to expose services to programs and users, and hence inside Blink Shell our approach has been to integrate Code with iOS so we could offer you the best of both worlds:"
- "A VSCode experience fitted to your device, that connects to VSCode web, Codespaces, GitPod, or your Code server."
- "Work on local projects, or edit remote files as if they were in your device, thanks to Blink Files."
- "First-class iOS experience, with software and hardware keyboard, and the full edge-to-edge experience without interruptions that everyone loves from Blink."
I use iPad Pro to code via Github Codespaces, so I can use Visual Studio Code and build there. Otherwise I'm using it for sketching etc for projects :)
Apple recently put Logic Pro on the iPad. Could be amazing for music or podcast production. So maybe it's great for other creative or content related efforts.
Im Carlos from Blink Shell, mentioned in a few comments here. Wanted to give my 2c as this is something I have been thinking about a lot. Usage and expectations have been changing a lot for these devices:
- At first (iPad2 & 3 years), for those who already had remote machines of some kind, the goal was to simply have a decent terminal on mobile devices to connect to them. The appeal was very clear and I think for a lot of people it offered a different context to do stuff. It still does.
- Things start to grow with iPad/iPhone, Apple was heavily investing on the hardware, and that brought another wave of users. The goal changed, it was not enough to "connect" anymore, but to do real work from these devices, for hours. The talk was to replace your laptop with an iPad, may sound familiar. We thought this wave was going to be big... but it never really materialized. Blame it on lack of software? The OS? M1? ...
- And so I think we are now on a third generation. I don't think the goal is to replace anything anymore. I see the next wave as a mix of the previous two. I want to work from anywhere, access my tools from wherever I am, access the code for my projects, pushing changes fast, etc. And it may be in my desktop computer, or in my coworker's laptop, on my iPad or my phone. Codespaces or in our case Blink Build are different approaches to do that. It is still getting started.
I think we are entering a world similar to what Rob Pike mentioned in this interview (https://usesthis.com/interviews/rob.pike/). The idea is that "state" is not something that you carry all day with you, but it is provided to you when you need it, connecting applications and dev environments from anywhere. That "state" may not necessarily be the Cloud, it will be computers in your office, or powerful remote environments somewhere, etc...
So yeah, if you were expecting Xcode, IntelliJ and XXX coming to an iPad and replacing your laptop, that may already be behind us and maybe even killed on phase 2. And although these apps may not play well in this new environment, it is worth questioning if it is more fault of the environment where we are headed or of the apps themselves. I want to think that Codespaces, Fleet, GitPod, Build, and your multiple machines wherever they are, will all play a part on that.
Hi Carlos, Jesse,
I’m one of the (maybe few?) developers that actually use an iPad as their main computing device for work, play and everything in between. First and foremost, I’d like to thank Carlos for the amazing work on the blink shell. The fact that this app exists and that it allows me to launch a VSCode instance on the iPad in an standalone way is a key part of my setup currently. Tools like tailscale, fish, mosh (courtesy of blink on the client side also) zellij, scudo and nomachine among other utilities are what have enabled me to fulfill this “dream” or idea of using the iPad as my “sole” device.
Now, it is true that this is not for everyone, I mostly do web stuff (Frontend, Backend, DevOps) and for me, having VSCode, a browser and being able to run everything on a server or remote computer that I can control via the terminal (or with a remote admin interface like the cockpit project) behind the scenes is more than enough; Also, I’ve put some considerable money in peripherals, apps, on my own networking homelab and its redundancy measures to keep everything running smooth no matter where I am or what complications might arise…
I mention this because I think it is important to clarify that the iPad (at least for now) cannot replace a computer, as a matter of fact I believe that no matter the workflow, (unless you ONLY use a browser) you’ll need a computer alongside the iPad at some point. Such computer can be a home server, a clamshell macbook connected to a smart outlet or some rented VPS, remote desktop or whatever, but the enticing part (at least for me) is for these computers to be “behind the scenes” infrastructure accessed from the iPad, where most of the real (user-facing) work is done, with its apps, within its ecosystem and in a beautiful, very portable and capable device.
Please Carlos, keep the good work with Blink this is the best app for iOS/iPadOS out there!
Cheers everyone and Happy new year 2024.
There is a visual studio port for iPad OS. Works great. I get your point and I use it basically for the same purpose. Reading books and having a development IDE next to it to run some samples and learn. I also use it for my other workflows like diagrams, emails, plans , docs, teams chat etc. (I use wireless one). I am an architect who loves to code.
Thanks for writing this Jesse - you inspired my to share my own thoughts at https://campedersen.com/. I linked back to you :)
Love it, thanks for sharing Cam. Nice blog by the way!
I got a Surface pro x for the same reason. That and, I wanted a touch screen for drawing diagrams. It is kind of the opposite problem. All the software runs (native ARM versions took a while to trifle in) and with WSL2, I have a real Linux on a lightweight VM. The problem is the SQ2 processor is so painfully slow.
Oh, no XCode. But I don't consider lacking XCode to be a problem.
Xcode is … interesting 🤣 . But Apple’s M series chip has been sooo good
I have an M2 Macbook pro issued by work. The chip really is superb. But mostly I write Python, Yaml, and HCL, so no Xcode for me.
My next computer, I am mostly concerned with how big an Nvidia chip I can spec it with.
First, you didn't mention the #1 reason to code on iPad Pro + Magic Keyboard: LTE data modem. Second, your "as far as I can tell" dismissed the professional coding approach:
> But if you need to run Xcode, VSCode, WebStorm, or Intellij than as far as I can tell the iPad is a no go.
For VSCode, try Blink Code in the Blink shell app:
"VSCode is a very powerful code editor which has become the tool of choice for a lot of developers in record time. ... The goal of a shell is to expose services to programs and users, and hence inside Blink Shell our approach has been to integrate Code with iOS so we could offer you the best of both worlds:"
- "A VSCode experience fitted to your device, that connects to VSCode web, Codespaces, GitPod, or your Code server."
- "Work on local projects, or edit remote files as if they were in your device, thanks to Blink Files."
- "First-class iOS experience, with software and hardware keyboard, and the full edge-to-edge experience without interruptions that everyone loves from Blink."
See: https://docs.blink.sh/advanced/code
I don’t use LTE but that’s a good option. Also I’m not following your “dismissed the professional coding approach” comment, could you elaborate?
Blink shell looks promising thanks for sharing!
I use iPad Pro to code via Github Codespaces, so I can use Visual Studio Code and build there. Otherwise I'm using it for sketching etc for projects :)
It seems that buying a MacBook Air is a good choice, but the disadvantage is that there is no screen with a dynamic refresh rate of 120Hz
Gitpod.io is perfect for the iPad. A full Linux and VS Code environment in the cloud.
Will check it out thanks for sharing!
Save money on an iPad and then spend $100 a month to code...
Not sure where you’ve got that pricing from? The free tier does the task fit on the go programming.
Apple recently put Logic Pro on the iPad. Could be amazing for music or podcast production. So maybe it's great for other creative or content related efforts.
I saw that, haven't had the chance to use it yet but I've been really enjoying Final Cut Pro!
You can remove "for coding" from the title. Buying any apple product is always a mistake
BuYiNg aN ApPlE PrOdUcT Is aLwAyS A MiStAkE