iPad as a laptop replacement

[Kal Madda]

Just picked up my (open box) IPP 13 M4, and MKB (black). I had a M1 12.9 and white MKB. This combo is much better. Lighter plus the keys are more comfortable at least for me, as the M1 MKB made my joints ache. (Almost 72 year old here). I have a 15 inch Skyblue MBA arriving tomorrow to replace the M1 MBA yet now I am wondering if I really need the laptop. My use cases don’t really involve any heavy use. Plus the display is just very nice. The newer MKB is almost as comfortable as my MBA was. Almost.

Awesome! I think that’s a great pick! 👍🏻 I recently got a chance to try out display models for the 11” M4 iPad Pro, 13” M4 iPad Pro, and the new M4 MacBook Air models. I also like the keyboard on the 13” M4 iPad Pro. I currently have an 11” M1 iPad Pro, so I’ve been debating whether I will upgrade to an 11” or 13” M4 iPad Pro. I think that debate is over now that I’ve had a chance to try both side by side, and handle them. I think I’m now leaning more towards the 13”. It’s got a slightly larger footprint than the 11” model does, but the extra screen real-estate and full-sized keyboard make a dramatic difference. And it really doesn’t feel a lot noticeably heavier than the 11” now with the weight reduction, I even was able to hold it as a tablet for around 10 minutes or so to get a feel for using it as a tablet separate from the keyboard, and it felt perfectly fine to me. 👍🏻. The 11” is perfectly fine for productivity, but the 13” just feels a step above. 👍🏻. And typing on the keyboard case is awesome, I notice I can type a bit faster since it’s a full sized keyboard. And it feels nearly identical to the keyboard on the MacBook Air. 👍🏻

 

[splifingate]

Late to the Game, but:

My iPad doesn't even approach the functionality of my Lappy.

 

[Kal Madda]

Late to the Game, but:

My iPad doesn't even approach the functionality of my Lappy.

I think that makes sense for some people and some workflows, a laptop can be a better option for some people. The iPad isn’t the best option for everyone. But I think it is the best option for a lot of people, myself included. 👍🏻

 

[SnowCrocodile]

Beyond hinge mechanics, what can other 2-in-1s do extra? Maybe have an HDMI port?

I like being able take off the keyboard.

It depends on a laptop.

I had a mid-range Acer Spin 5. It was a very solid laptop, despite being fairly cheap (about $790 or so). Weight was 1.2 kg, which is practically the same as Surface Pro 8 with keyboard (1.188 kg). Display was not very high quality, just good enough. The battery life was good for a Windows laptop, over 6 hrs when new. Easily double of what I was getting with Surface. The keyboard folded all the way to the back, so it could be used in a tablet mode (but heavy; but so is Surface). The screen ratio was different - wider horizontally and narrower vertically. I’d say this made it more versatile for taking notes, but harder to hold in portrait orientation.

On paper, Surface had many advantages. In real life, the combination of reliable battery, lack of throttling, and a more spacious keyboard made it a better laptop, while still allowing it to be used for hand notes or markup in a pinch. No camera on the back, though.

I almost never use Surface as a tablet anymore, too frustrating. For an occasional pen markup, a 2-in-1 would be just as good.

 

[TgeekB]

I think that makes sense for some people and some workflows, a laptop can be a better option for some people. The iPad isn’t the best option for everyone. But I think it is the best option for a lot of people, myself included. 👍🏻

And that’s why it’s so popular. It’s the inbetween answer. Don’t/can’t do it on your smartphone? Don’t need the power of your laptop? The iPad fits that large gap between the two and does it so well it is often difficult to distinguish it from them. It blurs the lines. What an awesome device!

 

[SnowCrocodile]

I think that makes sense for some people and some workflows, a laptop can be a better option for some people. The iPad isn’t the best option for everyone. But I think it is the best option for a lot of people, myself included. 👍🏻

Even though I have a MacBook, I am using my iPad connected to an external monitor, mouse and keyboard a lot more often. It’s very portable and is naturally easier to move around, so most of the time when I want to use my Apple apps and I am in my study where the PC is located, I just grab the iPad.

 

[Kal Madda]

Even though I have a MacBook, I am using my iPad connected to an external monitor, mouse and keyboard a lot more often. It’s very portable and is naturally easier to move around, so most of the time when I want to use my Apple apps and I am in my study where the PC is located, I just grab the iPad.

Yeah, my iPad is my primary computer, and has completely replaced the MacBook in my workflow. I do have a Mac Mini, but I mostly just use it for an NAS. I love the versatility of the iPad, and I love iPadOS. 👍🏻.

 

[splifingate]

I think that makes sense for some people and some workflows, a laptop can be a better option for some people. The iPad isn’t the best option for everyone. But I think it is the best option for a lot of people, myself included. 👍🏻

Yes; a "best" option for a lot of people.

No surprise there, really.

As much as I love my M4 iPP, the things I can do with it are kilometers-behind that which I can do with a 9yo MBP.

As for the lifespan of such endeavours: the MBP's use is measured in hours, while the iPP's usage is measured in days....

 

[TgeekB]

Yes; a "best" option for a lot of people.

No surprise there, really.

As much as I love my M4 iPP, the things I can do with it are kilometers-behind that which I can do with a 9yo MBP.

As for the lifespan of such endeavours: the MBP's use is measured in hours, while the iPP's usage is measured in days....

What I don’t understand is the idea that people have to make a choice to ‘replace” one with the other. They are completely different devices. Why not use them for their intended use instead of forcing one to try to act like the other? Makes no sense to me.

 

[Kal Madda]

What I don’t understand is the idea that people have to make a choice to ‘replace” one with the other. They are completely different devices. Why not use them for their intended use instead of forcing one to try to act like the other? Makes no sense to me.

Yeah, I don’t think people have to make a choice to replace one with the other, but I think many choose to replace one with the other because they find the combo of both redundant or have limited budget, or just prefer one over the other. For me personally, I decided to switch over to the iPad as my full-time primary computer and replace my MacBook with it after I originally had bought it thinking it would be a companion device. I just really was won over by the versatility of the iPad and iPadOS. Many of the apps that I use for my workflow I actually prefer the iPad versions, and I prefer the way iPadOS handles some things over macOS. I like macOS, and that’s one of the reasons I keep a Mac Mini, so I can tinker with macOS. I also use the Mac Mini for my own NAS kind of private cloud storage. But basically all of my work happens on my iPad. Not because I feel I have to replace the Mac with it, but because I prefer it. 👍🏻

 

[salamanderjuice]

What I don’t understand is the idea that people have to make a choice to ‘replace” one with the other. They are completely different devices. Why not use them for their intended use instead of forcing one to try to act like the other? Makes no sense to me.

I don't want to travel with a tablet and a laptop. Just one. I like the tablet form factor, so I'd rather have one that "does everything".

 

[Ludatyk]

I did away with the big clunky wired keyboard for the Mac Mini, and am back to using the old bluetooth keyboard I have for logging into it, and when I don’t need it, I can conveniently store it under the desk riser. Eventually I probably will replace that bluetooth keyboard with another one, that way I can still use the Mac Mini for something if I happen to be at my desk without my iPad, but I’ve been using Universal Control quite a bit. 👍🏻. It’s been extremely convenient having it set up to connect automatically! 👍🏻.

I'm glad you took my advice with removing the old bluetooth keyboard... looks much better IMO.

And the MagFlott stand is awesome! Build construction is next level, highly recommend it! I recently purchased the Hoverboard Duo Stand... using that with the Galaxy Fold as you can see from the photo above. I like how I rearranged my setup to have both (iPad and Galaxy Fold) sit right in front of me... easily accessible.

But back to the MagFlott stand... if you ever plan on picking one up, go through Shop app. It helped me receive a 30% discount... it has the potential to go up to 40%, but I could never take advantage of it. The stand comes with an additional cable... its a UCable, helps to keep the setup clean.

I like the ability to rotate the stand landscape or portrait, but I rarely use my iPad portrait... but that's me. They provide two screws and a small L-shape Hex tool to screw the base in... along with some of marketing material promoting their other products. Comes with 3 year warranty, but I think that's just being superfluous... because the build quality will surely last over 3 years.

So, I have this stand... that will be used specifically for the desk. Because I didn't like having the (iPad) Magic Keyboard on the desk... took up too much space and I have TWO keyboards already on it. I could keep my MBP closed, but I like having it open for Touch-ID.

But I plan to keep this setup for awhile... at least until this year. I still need to buy some hexagon panels to place on the backwall, but I'm in no rush.

 

[Kal Madda]

I'm glad you took my advice with removing the old bluetooth keyboard... looks much better IMO.

View attachment 2496294

And the MagFlott stand is awesome! Build construction is next level, highly recommend it! I recently purchased the Hoverboard Duo Stand... using that with the Galaxy Fold as you can see from the photo above. I like how I rearranged my setup to have both (iPad and Galaxy Fold) sit right in front of me... easily accessible.

But back to the MagFlott stand... if you ever plan on picking one up, go through Shop app. It helped me receive a 30% discount... it has the potential to go up to 40%, but I could never take advantage of it. The stand comes with an additional cable... its a UCable, helps to keep the setup clean.

I like the ability to rotate the stand landscape or portrait, but I rarely use my iPad portrait... but that's me. They provide two screws and a small L-shape Hex tool to screw the base in... along with some of marketing material promoting their other products. Comes with 3 year warranty, but I think that's just being superfluous... because the build quality will surely last over 3 years.

So, I have this stand... that will be used specifically for the desk. Because I didn't like having the (iPad) Magic Keyboard on the desk... took up too much space and I have TWO keyboards already on it. I could keep my MBP closed, but I like having it open for Touch-ID.

But I plan to keep this setup for awhile... at least until this year. I still need to buy some hexagon panels to place on the backwall, but I'm in no rush.

Thanks, I really appreciate the advice. 👍🏻 Having that big keyboard gone makes a big improvement for my desk space. I am glad to be done with that keyboard, because I don’t really like the key travel on it, and it’s huge so I couldn’t really store it away when I didn’t need it either.

Wow, that looks awesome! I like the iPad and Galaxy fold placement, that looks like it works great. 👍🏻. And the portable monitor placement also works nicely just above the MacBook’s display. 👍🏻

I’m glad to hear the stand is well-built. It looks like it should last for a while. 👍🏻. And it looks like it’s at a nice elevation. And thanks for the tip about purchasing through that app, I might buy one when I upgrade. 👍🏻

 

[Kal Madda]

My SSD enclosure arrived today! I got it set up, and now my drive is back in action! 👍🏻. This will greatly simplify my setup now with a 1TB SSD drive connected to the Mac Mini rather than old mechanical drives. I’m thinking that eventually if I want more additional storage, I can get another of these enclosures and stack it on top of this one. But now my drive is also more accessible, and I can use my own cables for it. 👍🏻. So far my drive is running snappy, maybe even slightly faster than with the older enclosure. It does have a plastic internal tray for holding the circuit board and drive, but the outer shell that slips around it is aluminum, and quite thick at that. It definitely feels robust, and I’d feel much better about taking this with me on a trip than with my old plastic slide-together enclosure. 👍🏻. I may actually take this on the road with me with my iPad now occasionally. 👍🏻

 

[Ludatyk]

My SSD enclosure arrived today! I got it set up, and now my drive is back in action! 👍🏻. This will greatly simplify my setup now with a 1TB SSD drive connected to the Mac Mini rather than old mechanical drives. I’m thinking that eventually if I want more additional storage, I can get another of these enclosures and stack it on top of this one. But now my drive is also more accessible, and I can use my own cables for it. 👍🏻. So far my drive is running snappy, maybe even slightly faster than with the older enclosure. It does have a plastic internal tray for holding the circuit board and drive, but the outer shell that slips around it is aluminum, and quite thick at that. It definitely feels robust, and I’d feel much better about taking this with me on a trip than with my old plastic slide-together enclosure. 👍🏻. I may actually take this on the road with me with my iPad

Simplify? I'm guessing you had multiple mechanical drives? I still have some mechanical drives... but use it for media storage purposes (Plex).

 

[sparksd]

Simplify? I'm guessing you had multiple mechanical drives? I still have some mechanical drives... but use it for media storage purposes (Plex).

As do I. I'd like to replace them with SSDs but 20TB would be prohibitively expensive.

 

[Kal Madda]

Simplify? I'm guessing you had multiple mechanical drives? I still have some mechanical drives... but use it for media storage purposes (Plex).

Yeah, at one point I had a couple of other mechanical drives connected. My first Mac was a Mid 2012 MacBook Pro I bought cheap a while back (I think 2018?), and I did a drive swap on it. So I had the original internal mechanical drive from that MacBook that I used at first as an external backup drive for the MacBook, and then ended up using it as additional storage for my Mac Mini with the plastic enclosure. I had a couple other internal mechanical SATA drives from other people’s computers I had done SSD swaps for as well, so I used another of those with just a SATA to USB adapter cable for a bit. Not probably the greatest of ideas using it that way since the drive didn’t have an enclosure, but it worked okay for a bit. Both were 500GB drives, so I had a total of 1TB extra storage with that setup. I ended up stopping using that other mechanical drive with the SATA adapter because I hadn’t used enough storage on the other drive yet to need to tap into it, and I wasn’t sure about how good an idea it was to not have it in an enclosure just tucked back there with an adapter cable like that. But my 1TB SSD was laying idle not seeing any use in my now obsolete older MacBook, so I recently decided to crack it open and pull the SSD, replace it with the original mechanical drive again, and so now I have just as much storage as I did at maximum capacity with my old setup, but with a much faster SSD! 👍🏻.

 

[Kal Madda]

I took my SSD with it’s new enclosure out with me today with my iPad, and used the iPad to transfer some old files I wanted to save off of it, and then erase and reformat it for use as additional storage for my Mac Mini. It still had the system files from my old Mac on it, so I wanted to clean it up so I wasn’t wasting space on it. I ended up transferring around 40GB of files from the SSD to another drive with my iPad in the Files app. Everything ran smoothly. Once I finished transferring the files off that I wanted to keep, I erased, renamed, and reformatted the drive. So once I got back to my office, I simply plugged the drive into the Mac Mini, and now it’s available as an empty additional storage drive on my Mac that I can start to load my project files into! 👍🏻. Another win for the iPad!!! And the drive formatting options in iPadOS 18 are proving useful! 👍🏻

 

[Kal Madda]

Now that I’ve simplified and improved my storage hardware setup, I’d like to improve and streamline my software setup for accessing the storage remotely. So far I’ve been using Screens, but a complete VNC solution just for accessing files seems a tad bit excessive, and is far less efficient than I’d like. I’ve been thinking about buying FileBrowser Pro, I know several people here in this thread have talked about it, and I just realized is has a built in solution for remote access to a Mac’s storage from an iPhone or iPad. This sounds like it would be ideal for my purposes, and it would be added value for purchasing the app. Has anyone else here who owns FileBrowser Pro (@Ludatyk and @bondr006 I think you both said something about using it before) used this functionality? Basically I want to make my setup work closer to cloud storage to where I just use my iPhone when I’m out and about to remote access my Mac’s storage, download files from it, and AirDrop them over to my iPad. Has anyone here used FileBrowser Pro this way? If it works, that would be good reason alone to buy it. And another question, what exactly is the difference between the versions? Is there any advantage to doing the subscription FileBrowserGo version over the single-purchase FileBrowserPro? I’m leaning towards single-purchase, but the subscription is pretty cheap.

 

[salamanderjuice]

Now that I’ve simplified and improved my storage hardware setup, I’d like to improve and streamline my software setup for accessing the storage remotely. So far I’ve been using Screens, but a complete VNC solution just for accessing files seems a tad bit excessive, and is far less efficient than I’d like. I’ve been thinking about buying FileBrowser Pro, I know several people here in this thread have talked about it, and I just realized is has a built in solution for remote access to a Mac’s storage from an iPhone or iPad. This sounds like it would be ideal for my purposes, and it would be added value for purchasing the app. Has anyone else here who owns FileBrowser Pro (@Ludatyk and @bondr006 I think you both said something about using it before) used this functionality? Basically I want to make my setup work closer to cloud storage to where I just use my iPhone when I’m out and about to remote access my Mac’s storage, download files from it, and AirDrop them over to my iPad. Has anyone here used FileBrowser Pro this way? If it works, that would be good reason alone to buy it. And another question, what exactly is the difference between the versions? Is there any advantage to doing the subscription FileBrowserGo version over the single-purchase FileBrowserPro? I’m leaning towards single-purchase, but the subscription is pretty cheap.

Doesn't Files support SMB? Why not setup that? Or look into NextCloud if you want something more cloud service like.

You could also setup a VPN like wireguard to access your network and files outside the house.

 

[Kal Madda]

Doesn't Files support SMB? Why not setup that? Or look into NextCloud if you want something more cloud service like.

You could also setup a VPN like wireguard to access your network and files outside the house.

I have used the connection via the Files app, and it works great when I’m on the local network, but it doesn’t work on remote networks without a solution like TailScale as far as I understand. But I already have a VPN I use for some other things, so I’d have to pick and choose one or the other and turn the VPN on and off every time, which makes that solution less appealing. My ISP router doesn’t support port forwarding either, I think there are some workarounds for that, but they’re pretty complicated as far as I understand.

Could I set up Files to connect with my Macs native storage without a VPN or port forwarding on another network? Because if I could, that would actually be the ideal solution. 👍🏻

If not, FileBrowser Pro sounds like it would be an easy setup if it works. And I was already thinking about buying it and trying it out anyways, so that could just be more value added and a one piece solution if it works. 👍🏻

PS, I also just looked up NextCloud, looks promising. 👍🏻. I’ll continue looking into it. 👍🏻

 

[sparksd]

Now that I’ve simplified and improved my storage hardware setup, I’d like to improve and streamline my software setup for accessing the storage remotely. So far I’ve been using Screens, but a complete VNC solution just for accessing files seems a tad bit excessive, and is far less efficient than I’d like. I’ve been thinking about buying FileBrowser Pro, I know several people here in this thread have talked about it, and I just realized is has a built in solution for remote access to a Mac’s storage from an iPhone or iPad. This sounds like it would be ideal for my purposes, and it would be added value for purchasing the app. Has anyone else here who owns FileBrowser Pro (@Ludatyk and @bondr006 I think you both said something about using it before) used this functionality? Basically I want to make my setup work closer to cloud storage to where I just use my iPhone when I’m out and about to remote access my Mac’s storage, download files from it, and AirDrop them over to my iPad. Has anyone here used FileBrowser Pro this way? If it works, that would be good reason alone to buy it. And another question, what exactly is the difference between the versions? Is there any advantage to doing the subscription FileBrowserGo version over the single-purchase FileBrowserPro? I’m leaning towards single-purchase, but the subscription is pretty cheap.

Here's the version comparison:

https://www.stratospherix.com/products/comparison.php

 

[jbs-horn]

I have used the connection via the Files app, and it works great when I’m on the local network, but it doesn’t work on remote networks without a solution like TailScale as far as I understand. But I already have a VPN I use for some other things, so I’d have to pick and choose one or the other and turn the VPN on and off every time, which makes that solution less appealing. My ISP router doesn’t support port forwarding either, I think there are some workarounds for that, but they’re pretty complicated as far as I understand.

Could I set up Files to connect with my Macs native storage without a VPN or port forwarding on another network? Because if I could, that would actually be the ideal solution. 👍🏻

If not, FileBrowser Pro sounds like it would be an easy setup if it works. And I was already thinking about buying it and trying it out anyways, so that could just be more value added and a one piece solution if it works. 👍🏻

PS, I also just looked up NextCloud, looks promising. 👍🏻. I’ll continue looking into it. 👍🏻

Files handles smb file shares over a vpn just fine as long as you use numeric ip addressing. I use it frequently. Since Apple allows the VPN to be added to the control center, it’s fast and convenient to access it even in the middle of a task.

 

[Kal Madda]

I’ve looked further into it, and sadly it looks like FileBrowser Pro uses VPN or port forwarding to access files remotely, at least according to the documentation here: https://www.stratospherix.com/products/guides/SetupForExternalAccess.pdf

 

[Kal Madda]

Files handles smb file shares over a vpn just fine as long as you use numeric ip addressing. I use it frequently. Since Apple allows the VPN to be added to the control center, it’s fast and convenient to access it even in the middle of a task.

Yeah, I was hoping to find a solution that doesn’t require VPN or Port Forwarding. Something more like a secure web connection style solution. More like VNC, but just for File access. But it seems like it’s very hard to find a solution like that. I read though that FileBrowser Pro was supposed to have a web-based access system for files that didn’t rely on VPN or port forwarding. So maybe that’s true, I guess I’ll have to keep looking into it. 👍🏻