iPad Pro iPad as a REAL Productivity Device

[rui no onna]

A couple of remarks...
3. Paging has no technical issues on iPadOS, it's just a choice by Apple, with it's benefits and drawbacks...

Caveat there, iPadOS runs on iPads from 16GB storage (iPad Air 2/mini 4) all the way to 1TB (2018/2020 iPad Pro).

Random small block performance on flash storage on older iPads is also just around HDD level. My 2017 iPad Pro 512GB only has random 4K writes of 4.44 MB/s.

SSD wear may not be an issue on 128-256GB but it likely will be on just 16-32GB, not to mention it would barely leave any space for the user's apps and data.

 

[ouimetnick]

Caveat there, iPadOS runs on iPads from 16GB storage (iPad Air 2/mini 4) all the way to 1TB (2018/2020 iPad Pro).

Random small block performance on flash storage on older iPads is also just around HDD level. My 2017 iPad Pro 512GB only has random 4K writes of 4.44 MB/s.

SSD wear may not be an issue on 128-256GB but it likely will be on just 16-32GB, not to mention it would barely leave any space for the user's apps and data.

Offer different performance on larger/newer devices then. Apple restricts features all the time from working on older less capable hardware all the time.
Restrict some software features to only be enabled on iPad “Pro” devices. They do that with iPhone features to keep certain nifty tricks exclusive to new iPhones.

What you mentioned above isn’t a legitimate excuse. (Nothing against you, don’t take it the wrong way)

 

[bill-p]

A couple of remarks...
1. SSD wear is not an issue, tests have proven that with normal use it would take many decades to kill an SSD.
2. RAM impact on battery life is minimal.
3. Paging has no technical issues on iPadOS, it's just a choice by Apple, with it's benefits and drawbacks...
4. There is an alternative to paging, it's pegging apps to RAM. It's possible on some Android devices.
Problem is Android flagships tend to have more RAM, and implementing this on I(Pad)OS would expose the limited amount of RAM of Apple devices, so I doubt they will implement this, at least before a few more years...

In response:

1. Regular swapping/paging is not "normal use". Open Activity Monitor and look at your memory pressure on MacOS. Chances are it's quite low in "normal use". It'll only spike up if you start allocating 8GB RAM to your virtual machines, for instance. Also enterprise SSD is not the same as consumer-grade SSD. Granted, I do agree wear is probably not a big concern within 5 years even with high memory pressure.

2. RAM impact on battery life is minimal, but regular swapping causes CPU spikes, which leads to poor battery life. You can actually try enabling swap on your Android device to test the impact it has on battery life. It's not like you can't do that on Android, but... let's just say Google and most developers decide to leave "swap" off by default for a reason.

This may not be too relevant to iOS or Android, but you can read this report done on a Raspberry Pi for reference:
http://www.roylongbottom.org.uk/Raspberry Pi Stress Tests.htm#anchor18

With data size of 420 MB, there is continuous swapping in and out. Program data demands of 6 x 420 MB or 2.52 GB give rise to 10.4 GB being written or read from the SD card swap file (from average KB in and KB out). There is also a continuous 50% to 80% waiting time for I/O. Bottom line is a speed reduction of 8 to 10 times at 700 MHz, compared with no swapping, and 14 to 17 times with maximum overclocking.

3. Paging has technical issues on iPadOS and iOS as a whole. If you've jailbroken your device, you can actually try to enable it (you just need to compile a few files and push them in, this part of MacOS is open-source as far as I recall) and see what happens. I can tell you that if you're "lucky", the device will just kernel panic a few times. It's not "just a choice". It's a whole platform at this point. Frameworks have been built to assume no "swap" for years.

4. I think you're mistaken. iOS does support paging (virtual memory). It just doesn't support "swap". When I wrote "swap", I meant a mechanism that allows the device to automatically "page out" to storage when it's low on fast-access memory (RAM). You can actually still "page in" from storage with iOS by mapping file to memory. Also apps are allowed to do whatever, including keeping a disk cache (like what Photoshop is doing on MacOS) as "memory", so it's not a problem for a foreground app that needs more than what the iPad offers. It's a problem for background apps. iOS/iPadOS assumes no backing store for "swap", so there is a finite amount of memory available. As a result, it tries to eradicate apps in the background with a vengeance. When your app is no longer in the foreground, it's given only seconds to write just enough data so that the user can resume their task the next time the app is launched. After that, execution is forced to cease. This is in stark contrast to MacOS and Android, and it's this extra mechanism that makes it pointless even if you were to somehow get "swap" to be stable on a jailbroken iPad.

I think you and many others are misled by Steve Jobs' remarks about iOS being Mac OS X. It's not. It is a completely different kind of beast.

 

[Zazoh]

Welcome and thanks for accepting it back gracefully!

This is interesting. If you don't mind would you share your workflow on an iPad in a bit more details? I at least would be interested.

Personal Background: Started coding BAT files in DOS when it was first released in the early 80s. Currently work for a large financial corporation as a Full Stack Developer and have a small team that reports to me. We specialize in web applications that use various front-end technologies that connect to Oracle.

Hardware: iPad Air Gen 3, External Mac Keyboard (The White One) External Apple TrackPad and MacBook Air M1. (Base Config)
Use occasionally: External LG 4K 21" In Monitor. (Apple use to sell)

If I have a light coding day or am traveling I will use the iPad combined with VMWare Horizon to connect to work. Here is what that looks like.

Using SQL Developer (Note, I'm connected to a Windows Virtual Server)

Visual Studio Code


I could use this all day, BUT, if I walk away and iPad goes to sleep it drops connection and I need to log back in. But, desktop is preserved when I do so.

I can still respond to iMessages and Mail or open safari if need be.

If I want to go native: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/textastic-code-editor-9/id1049254261

Textastic is a wonderful free Editor and network connection utility for the iPad.

My Paradigm = Minimalism. I won a $500 bet that I could use a Chromebook only for a year. Instead of using Textastic, I could just go to the web interface of my web hosting platform and add photos, edit files, created files etc from there. Other than complex video production, nearly everything can be done through a web interface these days.

As long as you understand that all programing is text. (Yes even Swift UI for Mac) All you need is VIM at the shell, or NotePad / TextEdit in a GUI to make stuff. That is why I have always bought the most minimal machine I can for Programing. One doesn't need Large Memory or storage. I'm not running a server, I'm running a conduit to a server for where I will deposit my code.

I've amassed quite a collection of personal code libraries for what I do on the web. I have CRUD templates for various technologies so almost any project I take on is putting collections of library elements together.

I could go on for hours on this, but we may need to take off line or start a new thread. On another note, split window on iPad is only helpful to me when I need to make notes and copy text from reading. I don't do a lot of that, but the source of where I'm copying from is the biggest hinderance, if the website can be brought up in Reader view and is clean, then it is easy and very doable.

And, even tho I have two eyes, I've always been more productive with one monitor. That way my focus stays on task. It cracks me up when we used to go into the office where we all had two monitors and about 70% of the people would have a task on one monitor and an email on the other, and all Outlook is doing is interrupting you from what you are working on .

 

[secretk]

Personal Background: Started coding BAT files in DOS when it was first released in the early 80s. Currently work for a large financial corporation as a Full Stack Developer and have a small team that reports to me. We specialize in web applications that use various front-end technologies that connect to Oracle.

Cool. Nice to meet you. We also develop product related to financial but it is Java enterprise web application that we currently migrate to Springboot.

Hardware: iPad Air Gen 3, External Mac Keyboard (The White One) External Apple TrackPad and MacBook Air M1. (Base Config)
Use occasionally: External LG 4K 21" In Monitor. (Apple use to sell)

If I have a light coding day or am traveling I will use the iPad combined with VMWare Horizon to connect to work. Here is what that looks like.

Using SQL Developer (Note, I'm connected to a Windows Virtual Server)
View attachment 1707929

Nice. We also use SQL Developer to access DBs.

Visual Studio Code
View attachment 1707928

I could use this all day, BUT, if I walk away and iPad goes to sleep it drops connection and I need to log back in. But, desktop is preserved when I do so.

I can still respond to iMessages and Mail or open safari if need be.

We use Eclipse or IntelliJ but they are the same thing - IDE you can use. The rest are minor details. Like I like the debug perspective of Eclipse more than IntelliJ but I like the searching and referencing better in IntelliJ. So it is about preference.

If I want to go native: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/textastic-code-editor-9/id1049254261

Textastic is a wonderful free Editor and network connection utility for the iPad.

My Paradigm = Minimalism. I won a $500 bet that I could use a Chromebook only for a year. Instead of using Textastic, I could just go to the web interface of my web hosting platform and add photos, edit files, created files etc from there. Other than complex video production, nearly everything can be done through a web interface these days.

As long as you understand that all programing is text. (Yes even Swift UI for Mac) All you need is VIM at the shell, or NotePad / TextEdit in a GUI to make stuff. That is why I have always bought the most minimal machine I can for Programing. One doesn't need Large Memory or storage. I'm not running a server, I'm running a conduit to a server for where I will deposit my code.

Makes sense. We have a local server. Also we are not allowed to have our code on anything but our company laptop due to security reasons.

And, even tho I have two eyes, I've always been more productive with one monitor. That way my focus stays on task. It cracks me up when we used to go into the office where we all had two monitors and about 70% of the people would have a task on one monitor and an email on the other, and all Outlook is doing is interrupting you from what you are working on .

A balance needs to be found for sure. I do use two monitors but in different way. For example today I had to go through our strategy for 2021 and all the tasks we have planned because I need to distribute to them to the different teams under me (I deal with like 5-6 agile teams with different expertise so I had to refine technically the tasks to know what expertise was needed). It was definitely better to have on one monitor the source material and on the other monitor my notes on my strategy and distribution plan.

 

[Digitalguy]

In response:

1. Regular swapping/paging is not "normal use". Open Activity Monitor and look at your memory pressure on MacOS. Chances are it's quite low in "normal use". It'll only spike up if you start allocating 8GB RAM to your virtual machines, for instance. Also enterprise SSD is not the same as consumer-grade SSD. Granted, I do agree wear is probably not a big concern within 5 years even with high memory pressure.

2. RAM impact on battery life is minimal, but regular swapping causes CPU spikes, which leads to poor battery life. You can actually try enabling swap on your Android device to test the impact it has on battery life. It's not like you can't do that on Android, but... let's just say Google and most developers decide to leave "swap" off by default for a reason.

This may not be too relevant to iOS or Android, but you can read this report done on a Raspberry Pi for reference:
http://www.roylongbottom.org.uk/Raspberry Pi Stress Tests.htm#anchor18



3. Paging has technical issues on iPadOS and iOS as a whole. If you've jailbroken your device, you can actually try to enable it (you just need to compile a few files and push them in, this part of MacOS is open-source as far as I recall) and see what happens. I can tell you that if you're "lucky", the device will just kernel panic a few times. It's not "just a choice". It's a whole platform at this point. Frameworks have been built to assume no "swap" for years.

4. I think you're mistaken. iOS does support paging (virtual memory). It just doesn't support "swap". When I wrote "swap", I meant a mechanism that allows the device to automatically "page out" to storage when it's low on fast-access memory (RAM). You can actually still "page in" from storage with iOS by mapping file to memory. Also apps are allowed to do whatever, including keeping a disk cache (like what Photoshop is doing on MacOS) as "memory", so it's not a problem for a foreground app that needs more than what the iPad offers. It's a problem for background apps. iOS/iPadOS assumes no backing store for "swap", so there is a finite amount of memory available. As a result, it tries to eradicate apps in the background with a vengeance. When your app is no longer in the foreground, it's given only seconds to write just enough data so that the user can resume their task the next time the app is launched. After that, execution is forced to cease. This is in stark contrast to MacOS and Android, and it's this extra mechanism that makes it pointless even if you were to somehow get "swap" to be stable on a jailbroken iPad.

I think you and many others are misled by Steve Jobs' remarks about iOS being Mac OS X. It's not. It is a completely different kind of beast.

1. Regular swapping is normal use, what is not normal is allocating 8GB to it regularly... And I was talking about consumer SSDs not enterprise ones. You can use a laptop with a consumer SSD and regularly use paging/swapping and have your disk easily lasting over a decade. Again not swapping every day all day long 8GB... which is far from normal use...

2. I was talking about having more RAM, not swapping

3. IOS was never made to swap, as you said, this does not prevent Apple from changing this to make this happen. What I meant (I probably didn't phrase this very clearly) is that it is not a limitation of ARM, it's a limitation of the current operating system. Starting from that we can only speculate on how easy or difficult is to implement this, but if Apple really wanted to do it there you be no obstacle to do it...

4. Mistaken in what? When I said peg to RAM I was talking about the user deciding which app should have priority, which is not allowed by i(Pad)OS, not whether a developer can page in from storage etc.

As to the last sentence, that's a wrong assumption as far as I am concerned. I have always said in these forums and elsewhere that they are 2 different OSs.

I don't want to spark an endless debate and even less any sort of battle. Hope this remain a constructive exchange and a useful input for those who read and not an annoying exchange of posts to prove who is right and who is wrong.

 

[rui no onna]

Offer different performance on larger/newer devices then. Apple restricts features all the time from working on older less capable hardware all the time.
Restrict some software features to only be enabled on iPad “Pro” devices. They do that with iPhone features to keep certain nifty tricks exclusive to new iPhones.

What you mentioned above isn’t a legitimate excuse. (Nothing against you, don’t take it the wrong way)

Yes, Apple certainly could. I'm just saying all iPads until recently may have been considered too slow and with too little storage to implement swap (so a technical/performance related issue why they haven't done it yet). I still remember when my PCs with HDDs had to swap, they'd be pretty much unresponsive for a long time. Not fun.

In the benchmark results below, you can see how the A9X- and A10X-based iPad Pros had random performance on par with HDDs while on the A12X iPad Pro, performance jumped to around 2nd/3rd gen SSD level.

Now that the iPad Pros have gone up to 128GB base and random read/write performance has improved though, I'm certainly hoping Apple will implement swap on iPadOS (even if it's restricted to newer, higher end, higher capacity models).


My 2016 iPad Pro 9.7 256GB

My 2017 iPad Pro 12.9-inch 512GB

tps3443's 2018 iPad Pro 11-inch 1TB/6GB

 

[bill-p]

1. Regular swapping is normal use, what is not normal is allocating 8GB to it regularly... And I was talking about consumer SSDs not enterprise ones. You can use a laptop with a consumer SSD and regularly use paging/swapping and have your disk easily lasting over a decade. Again not swapping every day all day long 8GB... which is far from normal use...

2. I was talking about having more RAM, not swapping

3. IOS was never made to swap, as you said, this does not prevent Apple from changing this to make this happen. What I meant (I probably didn't phrase this very clearly) is that it is not a limitation of ARM, it's a limitation of the current operating system. Starting from that we can only speculate on how easy or difficult is to implement this, but if Apple really wanted to do it there you be no obstacle to do it...

4. Mistaken in what? When I said peg to RAM I was talking about the user deciding which app should have priority, which is not allowed by i(Pad)OS, not whether a developer can page in from storage etc.

As to the last sentence, that's a wrong assumption as far as I am concerned. I have always said in these forums and elsewhere that they are 2 different OSs.

I don't want to spark an endless debate and even less any sort of battle. Hope this remain a constructive exchange and a useful input for those who read and not an annoying exchange of posts to prove who is right and who is wrong.

1. I'm saying that that use case (allocating 8GB indefinitely) is possible on Mac, whereas on iOS, it's not. That's the fundamental difference. Since NAND chips are not made equal (enterprise being higher grade), some older iPads might have come with chips that have very poor write cycles, and they might have failed if "swap" was enabled. Newer iPads may not have this problem, but the OS has just been this way for too long.

2. Having more RAM causes less swapping on MacOS, so it's inter-related. In the context of MacOS, you really can't separate RAM from swap behavior (unless you intentionally inhibit swapping, but that's not the default behavior). Hence why for some use cases, it actually makes sense to have more RAM for better battery life and performance.

3. It doesn't prevent Apple from changing it, but they need to change a lot more than just adding swap back into iOS. It's not just a matter of them "making a choice", it's a fundamental re-imagining of how the OS works as a whole. The OS has been this way for over 10 years now, and it's not just Apple, but we also have billions of apps built with the assumption that iOS will shut the apps down as soon as they exit the foreground. That's the legacy, and I don't think Apple can ignore that, nor can they control how developers handle their apps.

4. My "mistaken" comment was more on the concept of "paging". I do apologize if I misunderstood your intentions. But in this case, even on MacOS, the user has no control over how "paging" works, either. In fact, that's the whole reason why "swap" is so inefficient. The user (and developer, for that matter) has no control over that mechanism. The OS determines when to "swap" (page out to storage, and then page in as needed). This is inefficient because the OS has no idea what is actually needed, and it may not be able to page in or page out the right data.

I'm not trying to engage in a "battle" with you. Please check and see that I've tried to include actual benchmarks, facts, articles and data to back up what I've been writing. I do get where you are coming from, but I think the reality may be a bit more complicated than you're making it out to be.

 

[rui no onna]

1. Regular swapping is normal use, what is not normal is allocating 8GB to it regularly... And I was talking about consumer SSDs not enterprise ones. You can use a laptop with a consumer SSD and regularly use paging/swapping and have your disk easily lasting over a decade. Again not swapping every day all day long 8GB... which is far from normal use...

Capacity matters. Swapping to a 128GB+ SSD is fine. Swapping to a 16-32GB SSD? That's far more problematic particularly since it's likely these won't have tons of free space available so write amplification is higher.

Also, it seems like Macs write a lot more data than Windows.

There's one Mac here with 216TB with ~3 years use. That's ~200GB/day. There's another one with 448TB/4 years or ~300GB/day. By contrast, my Windows desktop only has ~11.9TB writes after 2.4 years of use or ~13.6GB/day.

Smartmontool Reporting abnormally high SSD write activities?

Hi all, I have been using the lowest end Mac mini (8GB RAM, 256GB SSD) for two weeks now, and I am pretty happy with it. My workflow doesn't seem to stress the CPU that much, and memory pressure stays in the green zone 95% of the time. When I start coding and running emulators in Xcode, it...

forums.macrumors.com

On the M1 MacBook, I've had 700GB writes in 30 hours of use with iPad-type usage or 560GB/day. Let's assume that's inflated because of initial setup.

Assuming 3,000 P/E cycles:
16GB = ~48TB NAND writes
32GB = ~96TB NAND writes

With no write amplification (1x WAF):
200GB/day = 73TB writes per year

You'd kill the 16GB iPad in just 8 months and the 32GB in a little over a year.

 

[Digitalguy]

1. I'm saying that that use case (allocating 8GB indefinitely) is possible on Mac, whereas on iOS, it's not. That's the fundamental difference. Since NAND chips are not made equal (enterprise being higher grade), some older iPads might have come with chips that have very poor write cycles, and they might have failed if "swap" was enabled. Newer iPads may not have this problem, but the OS has just been this way for too long.

2. Having more RAM causes less swapping on MacOS, so it's inter-related. In the context of MacOS, you really can't separate RAM from swap behavior (unless you intentionally inhibit swapping, but that's not the default behavior). Hence why for some use cases, it actually makes sense to have more RAM for better battery life and performance.

3. It doesn't prevent Apple from changing it, but they need to change a lot more than just adding swap back into iOS. It's not just a matter of them "making a choice", it's a fundamental re-imagining of how the OS works as a whole. The OS has been this way for over 10 years now, and it's not just Apple, but we also have billions of apps built with the assumption that iOS will shut the apps down as soon as they exit the foreground. That's the legacy, and I don't think Apple can ignore that, nor can they control how developers handle their apps.

4. My "mistaken" comment was more on the concept of "paging". I do apologize if I misunderstood your intentions. But in this case, even on MacOS, the user has no control over how "paging" works, either. In fact, that's the whole reason why "swap" is so inefficient. The user (and developer, for that matter) has no control over that mechanism. The OS determines when to "swap" (page out to storage, and then page in as needed). This is inefficient because the OS has no idea what is actually needed, and it may not be able to page in or page out the right data.

I'm not trying to engage in a "battle" with you. Please check and see that I've tried to include actual benchmarks, facts, articles and data to back up what I've been writing. I do get where you are coming from, but I think the reality may be a bit more complicated than you're making it out to be.

1. Agreed, but Apple can exclude older iPads from this, as they did with Split Screen. But I don't think they would, so I am with you on this.

2. Agreed, that was just a misunderstanding in the first place.

3. Agreed, it's not just changing some code, that's some deep re-imagining of IOS. Not impossible, but again, not for the foreseable future...

4. No problem. I confess I know MacOS too little to have a good idea. In Windows, which I know much better, you can disable or reduce how much you can swap to disk. Personally I don't think swap is the way to go anyway. Again "pegging to RAM" would make much sense, but I don't think Apple will do it any time soon.

There were some misuderstanding (in part due to me being not very clear in the first place) any maybe a wrong assumption, but thanks for mantaining it constructive.
PS and yes, I agree, it's probably technically quite a complicated thing to do for Apple, although again, not impossible.

 

[Digitalguy]

Capacity matters. Swapping to a 128GB+ SSD is fine. Swapping to a 16-32GB SSD? That's far more problematic particularly since it's likely these won't have tons of free space available so write amplification is higher.

Also, it seems like Macs write a lot more data than Windows.

There's one Mac here with 216TB with ~3 years use. That's ~200GB/day. There's another one with 448TB/4 years or ~300GB/day. By contrast, my Windows desktop only has ~11.9TB writes after 2.4 years of use or ~13.6GB/day.

Smartmontool Reporting abnormally high SSD write activities?

Hi all, I have been using the lowest end Mac mini (8GB RAM, 256GB SSD) for two weeks now, and I am pretty happy with it. My workflow doesn't seem to stress the CPU that much, and memory pressure stays in the green zone 95% of the time. When I start coding and running emulators in Xcode, it...

forums.macrumors.com

On the M1 MacBook, I've had 700GB writes in 30 hours of use with iPad-type usage or 560GB/day. Let's assume that's inflated because of initial setup.

Assuming 3,000 P/E cycles:
16GB = ~48TB NAND writes
32GB = ~96TB NAND writes

With no write amplification (1x WAF):
200GB/day = 73TB writes per year

You'd kill the 16GB iPad in just 8 months and the 32GB in a little over a year.

Very good point I had not thought about... And given Apple's marketing strategy (low price with paultry storage to make you upgrade to a more profital model), this is not going to change anytime soon...

 

[Digitalguy]

Yes, Apple certainly could. I'm just saying all iPads until recently may have been considered too slow and with too little storage to implement swap (so a technical/performance related issue why they haven't done it yet). I still remember when my PCs with HDDs had to swap, they'd be pretty much unresponsive for a long time. Not fun.

In the benchmark results below, you can see how the A9X- and A10X-based iPad Pros had random performance on par with HDDs while on the A12X iPad Pro, performance jumped to around 2nd/3rd gen SSD level.

Now that the iPad Pros have gone up to 128GB base and random read/write performance has improved though, I'm certainly hoping Apple will implement swap on iPadOS (even if it's restricted to newer, higher end, higher capacity models).


My 2016 iPad Pro 9.7 256GB

View attachment 1707997


My 2017 iPad Pro 12.9-inch 512GB

View attachment 1707998


tps3443's 2018 iPad Pro 11-inch 1TB/6GB

View attachment 1707995

Man you always find some very interesting apps to test the iPad...
I bought the apps and tested my devices...
I don't get those numbers on my 1TB ipad pro... ?
The 10.5 is pretty close to the first gen pro (SATA 3 levels), while the 11 is clearly in PCIe territory, even if I get worse 4k numbers than you showed. The mini 5 is worse than the first gen pro in sequential but close to the 11 pro in random

 

[rui no onna]

Man you always find some very interesting apps to test the iPad...
I bought the apps and tested my devices...
I don't get those numbers on my 1TB ipad pro... ?
The 10.5 is pretty close to the first gen pro (SATA 3 levels), while the 11 is clearly in PCIe territory, even if I get worse 4k numbers than you showed. The mini 5 is worse than the first gen pro in sequential but close to the 11 pro in random

Free space? That matters, too. The more full the SSD gets, the worse the performance.

Mind, I believe Apple already switched to PCIe with at least A9. Problem is NAND packages were slower, lack of parallelism and it's apparent the storage controller could still be greatly improved.

 

[bill-p]

There were some misuderstanding (in part due to me being not very clear in the first place) any maybe a wrong assumption, but thanks for mantaining it constructive.
PS and yes, I agree, it's probably technically quite a complicated thing to do for Apple, although again, not impossible.

Yeah, I think Apple kind of dug themselves in pretty deep. It's not impossible to change the way iOS works, and... perhaps that's why they forked it to iPadOS. Changes may still be coming, but they'll likely be very very slow given the 10-year legacy of iOS.

Personally, I think what may happen is the eventual release of iPads that have 8-10GB RAM and much faster processors. At that point, Apple may lax up on requirements for background tasks, as we won't have such tight resource management anymore. They are already inching towards background tasks in iOS/iPadOS:

Background Tasks | Apple Developer Documentation

Request the system to launch your app in the background to run tasks.

developer.apple.com

The current problem with that is... the refresh task is the only one that can run while the device is active (while you're using it), but it's limited to 30 seconds or less. The other task (processing) can be up to minutes, but it's run only when the device is idle (when you're not using it).

 

[doolar]

“A tablet, a full fledged computer, and a media consumption device... a tablet, a full fledged computer, and a media consumption device... Are you getting it? These are not one device...” ? a little travesty I know.

I use my iPad for most of my personal computing and consumption. But I have at least one computer at my disposal.

Today I started learning Swift, and as we all know Xcode doesn’t run on my iPad. So I’m on my MPB using the iPad as an extra monitor for the online course video.

Would I want to run Xcode on my 11” iPad? Maybe in a pinch, but certainly not as a novice. I’m pretty happy and totally ok with that these are separate devices, with a lot of overlapping functions. I’ll use whatever one I need for the task at hand (or both).

 

[Apple_Robert]

I think the iPad Pro does a pretty good job at being a productivity device. iPads have come a long way over the.

For me, my iPad Pro comes close. I got the M1 because it can do some things my iPad Pro can't do, not to mention the extra screen real estate versus the iPP 11 is nice as well.

I do have a headless Mac mini that is running as my media server. I find it much more convenient to is my new M1, versus remoting into my mini all the time to do some work.

At this point in time, the Achelles Heel of the iPad is the OS.

 

[Zazoh]

Cool. Nice to meet you. We also develop product related to financial but it is Java enterprise web application that we currently migrate to Springboot.

Makes sense. We have a local server. Also we are not allowed to have our code on anything but our company laptop due to security reasons.

It was definitely better to have on one monitor the source material and on the other monitor my notes on my strategy and distribution plan.

Likewise.

Yes for corporate job, has to be on corporate laptop, OR VM Ware Horizon with two factor authentication using a token generator. Company does encourage the later, as it is actually safer not to have restricted data on a device that can be stolen.

When I use Textastic, it is for Side Jobs. I have a few friends who have websites for their business that I've done work on in the past.

Good use case for dual monitors.

Bottom line for me with the iPad for production work. In my line of work it can be done. But part of me thinks you have to want to make it work. If I were retired, I would not own a laptop. I can certainly fulfill all my personal needs through an iPhone and iPad.

 

[secretk]

Likewise.

Yes for corporate job, has to be on corporate laptop, OR VM Ware Horizon with two factor authentication using a token generator. Company does encourage the later, as it is actually safer not to have restricted data on a device that can be stolen.

Yep exactly .

When I use Textastic, it is for Side Jobs. I have a few friends who have websites for their business that I've done work on in the past.

Makes sense. Unfortunately I have no time for side jobs. Cool that you have the time!

Good use case for dual monitors.

Yeah, I try to use dual monitors setup in a good way. Like say have on one monitor the server console and on the other to debug the code. Or to have the web application instead of the server console. Or one monitor for the call and the other for meeting minutes I write as I need to share my meeting minutes and prefer to do it during the meeting and not afterwards.

Bottom line for me with the iPad for production work. In my line of work it can be done. But part of me thinks you have to want to make it work. If I were retired, I would not own a laptop. I can certainly fulfill all my personal needs through an iPhone and iPad.

If I am retired I most probably would have less computing needs so iPad only setup might work. As it is, I get frustrated with how slow and inefficient some things are done on an iPad.

 

[kristalsoldier]

So I bought a used 1 year old iPad Pro 10.5" 512GB for $500 back in late 2018. It's had some battery issues, and Apple refused to replace it the first time around. I went to the Apple Store today (3rd times a charm). This time I dealt with a nicer and more polite “Genius” He also witnessed the iPad’s battery percentage jump down slightly, and it failed the battery test. $99 later, I left with a refurbished iPad Pro 10.5.

I recently bought the 11” iPad Pro 1 TB from Apple during the Black Friday sales event after being denied the first time for a battery "replacement". Here’s the dilemma, and I'm thinking I should return the iPad Pro 11. Lets hypothetically say I sold the 10.5” iPad Pro 512GB for $350. That means I get $250 (spent $100 for battery service) iPad Pro 11” cost $1199-$250=$949

$949 gets you a

2 year old A12Z (really an A12X)
2GB more RAM
512GB more storage
0.5” larger screen
FaceID (works well at home since I don’t wear a mask at home)

More flimsy feeling chassis (you can easily flex and twist the iPad Pro 11, iPad Pro 10.5 doesn’t flex as easily) The iPad Pro 10.5 feels more rigid and less fragile than the newer iPad Pro 11.

USB-C

Am I missing anything? USB-C is nice, but the iPad doesn’t have proper external monitor support like a real computer does.
The iPad’s Files app is pathetic, iMovie is under featured, and a real keyboard costs an extra $300

• Why can't iMovie for iPad export a movie project in the background or upload to YouTube in the background? My super old Mid 2012 MBP 13" with 4GB of RAM can do it, why can't a 2020 iPad Pro with 6GB RAM do it? Why can an 8 year old computer (probably worth $300 run a full featured version of iMovie but $1199 iPad "Pro" cannot)
• Why can an 8 year old MacBook Pro copy 500GB worth of files and folders with out issue and do it in the background, but the 2020 iPad "Pro" Files app crashes and burns when copying more than 15GB? Isn't the iPad "Pro" suppose to be "your next computer"? Isn't the iPad Pro suppose to be more powerful than a 8 year old MBP? I don't even use that MBP anymore, I have a newer retina MBP Mid 2014.

I don’t need a new Mac right now either, but I spent $800 on a used Mid 2014 MBP 13” back in 2016. It struggles when editing 4K video, but it has a real version of iMovie that allows for actual video editing, it runs FCPX fine, has proper external display support, built in keyboard, real file support, etc. Even the 3 year old A10X with 4GB RAM in the 10.5” Pro handles 4K just fine.

Unless someone has any suggestions that don’t involve spending $30 on LumaFusion, I don't think iPad Pro isn’t really worth of the “Pro” name.

I wouldn’t consider 4 speakers to be a professional feature nor do I consider 120Hz refresh to be a professional feature considering Android devices have had this feature for a while now. $949 is a lot to spend on a device mostly used for media consumption and web browsing. I’d like to use it for productivity, but if it involves heavy typing, why would I spend $300 for a Magic Keyboard when I can use a perfectly capable keyboard on my MacBook Pro or Mac Pro? Why spend $30 on a video editing app when I could use iMovie on macOS for free or use FCPX (still learning my way around it?)

I will give the iPad Pro 11” credit, it scores higher in GeekBench 5 compared to the iPad Pro 10.5, it boots a few seconds faster and games like Asphalt and Need For Speed do load quicker, but once loaded, the game play is the same. If $949 got me a new iPad Pro 11” 1 TB with a A14X and some other improvements, I’d be tempted. But it seems like perhaps a MBP with M1 would be a smarter choice (when the time comes to replace my 2014 MBP) I do use my iPad more than my Mac, but a Mac seems to be a more powerful, more useful, more features, better value, etc.

I can't speak for everyone. I know that for some folks, iPad has replaced their computer for basic tasks. Some iPad owners like to draw with Apple Pencil and also do light photo editing with the Pencil. I've heard of iPad Pro being used by D.J.s rather than a full computer.

But why doesn't Apple make their professional apps like Logic and FCPX for iPad? They've demoed them running on a A12Z Mac mini. So they have their Mac Apps running on A12Z silicon and Apple M1. It seems all they need to do with enhance the UI for a touch based device. The hardware of even the A10X seems more than capable, but Apple appears to intentionally be holding iPad "Pro" back from being a real computer replacement for some reason. I find it interesting that a "professional" device doesn't even run Xcode. You can't even develop apps for iPadOS or iOS on an iPad, you need a real traditional Mac even though they have Xcode running on A12Z & M1

Some of the basic things I do on my MBP/Mac Pro that an iPad cannot do due to software limitations
Move large files over from one computer to another
Move files over the network (Finder shows everything on my network, why doesn't the Files.app?)
Ability to select chapters in videos (used to be a feature on iOS and iPadOS) (Helpful when watching guitar tutorial DVDs and I could pick a certain song. QuickTime and iTunes still allow this, not sure why Apple removed it from iPadOS/iOS)
Use plugins in FireFox & Chrome to save streaming video(s)
Occasionally edit video in iMovie & FCPX, but I want more title options, and the ability to speed clips more than 2X (iMovie for iPadOS limitation, intentional it seems)
Occasionally use Terminal for various tasks like exploring firmware files.
Typing anything more than a few sentences (like this post) (Suppose I could pair a bluetooth keyboard)

Everything else such as facebook, twitter, Instagram, YouTube, reading, Netflix, movies, I'll use an iPad for, and it does those things well. If they made an iPad Air with 512GB or 1TB, I'd probably buy it. Getting close to maxing out the 512GB 10.5"

Sorry for the long post, Just curious to hear other iPad/Mac user's thoughts. Had the "Geniuses" not been such a PITA and took my $99 like Apple's site advertises, I never would have bought a new iPad Pro. Even if the 11" iPad Pro did end up costing $949, I feel that's a lot of money to spend for some small improvements (listed above) especially when $50 more gets you a much more capable MacBook Air

What do you mean by “real productivity “ device? What’s “real productivity” to me may not be productivity to you (or anyone else) and vice versa.

 

[ouimetnick]

What do you mean by “real productivity “ device? What’s “real productivity” to me may not be productivity to you (or anyone else) and vice versa.

I think if you read the thread you’d see where I’m coming from. I’m not asking for radical changes, just the ability to multitask such as exporting an iMovie project while web browsing, a full featured version of iMovie,
(not a watered down lite edition that we currently have) or a File.app that isn’t filled with bugs.

Recently discovered you can’t have a FaceTime video chat and multitask as it turns off the camera. I know it’s allegedly for “security” reasons, but they could keep the green light active in the upper right hand corner?? I find it amusing that a less capable device like an iPad Pro costs more than a fully featured computer like a MacBook Air.

Like I’ve said, the iPad access at certain tasks like scanning documents, signing forms, drawing With Apple Pencil, etc. It’s also much nicer to browse online forums, read articles, watch video on YouTube or Netflix, and more.

 

[kristalsoldier]

I think if you read the thread you’d see where I’m coming from. I’m not asking for radical changes, just the ability to multitask such as exporting an iMovie project while web browsing, a full featured version of iMovie,
(not a watered down lite edition that we currently have) or a File.app that isn’t filled with bugs.

Recently discovered you can’t have a FaceTime video chat and multitask as it turns off the camera. I know it’s allegedly for “security” reasons, but they could keep the green light active in the upper right hand corner?? I find it amusing that a less capable device like an iPad Pro costs more than a fully featured computer like a MacBook Air.

Like I’ve said, the iPad access at certain tasks like scanning documents, signing forms, drawing With Apple Pencil, etc. It’s also much nicer to browse online forums, read articles, watch video on YouTube or Netflix, and more.

Yes, I did read the thread. But you have still not addressed the question I asked, namely, what do you mean by “real productivity “? While restating that in my opinion, the understanding of “productivity” will differ from person to person, I put to you that the iPad serves as a secondary, but indispensable, “real productivity” device in my specific context. And, to clarify further, by “real productivity “ I mean something that materially contributes to the salary that earn every month. So, for me, by that yardstick, the iPad is a “real productivity “ device.

 

[ouimetnick]

Yes, I did read the thread. But you have still not addressed the question I asked, namely, what do you mean by “real productivity “? While restating that in my opinion, the understanding of “productivity” will differ from person to person, I put to you that the iPad serves as a secondary, but indispensable, “real productivity” device in my specific context. And, to clarify further, by “real productivity “ I mean something that materially contributes to the salary that earn every month. So, for me, by that yardstick, the iPad is a “real productivity “ device.

I suppose for me, real productivity is what I used a computer for growing up and during school. Need to make a Keynote presentation, use a Mac. Need to make a video for a multimedia class, use iMovie or Adobe Premier. Need to write a research paper or type a study guide, use a real computer. Third party keyboard accessories seem clunky and worse than a laptop. Apple's Magic Keyboard is a nice solution, but a $600 iPad Air, and $300 MK, you mind as well buy a MBA. I could be exporting an iMovie project in multimedia class and be reading the requirements of the next assignment on Moodle (school internet page) I could be exporting an iMovie project while working on a presentation for science class or taking notes from a video I was told to watch for homework.

Can't do those things on a giant iPhone. I didn't buy an 11" iPad "Pro" to do all those things obviously, but I used iMovie for iPad for the first time on the 11" iPP and was disappointed that it's limited in features and I can't watch a YouTube video or read MacRumors while it exported. I paid more for the iPad than I did for a 2 year old 2014 MBP (bought back in 2016) I also was excited to use the Files.app for the first time with a USB-C to USB A adapter and was blown away.... by how pathetic and buggy it was.

How many businesses and creative professionals have been able to drop their MacBooks or iMac and switch to an iPad? Sure I see iPads used at restaurants, as point of sale, by artists, and DJs, but that seems to be it. The part that irks me is the iPad's hardware is more than powerful enough to do more, but Apple (even after 10 years) has yet to do anything. I think the iPhone has evolved and improved further in 10 years than the iPad has.

But yes you are correct, there is no standard definition of what "real productivity" is.

 

[kristalsoldier]

I suppose for me, real productivity is what I used a computer for growing up and during school. Need to make a Keynote presentation, use a Mac. Need to make a video for a multimedia class, use iMovie or Adobe Premier. Need to write a research paper or type a study guide, use a real computer. Third party keyboard accessories seem clunky and worse than a laptop. Apple's Magic Keyboard is a nice solution, but a $600 iPad Air, and $300 MK, you mind as well buy a MBA. I could be exporting an iMovie project in multimedia class and be reading the requirements of the next assignment on Moodle (school internet page) I could be exporting an iMovie project while working on a presentation for science class or taking notes from a video I was told to watch for homework.

Can't do those things on a giant iPhone. I didn't buy an 11" iPad "Pro" to do all those things obviously, but I used iMovie for iPad for the first time on the 11" iPP and was disappointed that it's limited in features and I can't watch a YouTube video or read MacRumors while it exported. I paid more for the iPad than I did for a 2 year old 2014 MBP (bought back in 2016) I also was excited to use the Files.app for the first time with a USB-C to USB A adapter and was blown away.... by how pathetic and buggy it was.

How many businesses and creative professionals have been able to drop their MacBooks or iMac and switch to an iPad? Sure I see iPads used at restaurants, as point of sale, by artists, and DJs, but that seems to be it. The part that irks me is the iPad's hardware is more than powerful enough to do more, but Apple (even after 10 years) has yet to do anything. I think the iPhone has evolved and improved further in 10 years than the iPad has.

But yes you are correct, there is no standard definition of what "real productivity" is.

Productivity for me requires my using 3 gadgets, namely, my Thinkpad, the IPP, and my phone (Android). Each is indispensable, but the Thinkpad is the primary device. And, for the purposes that I use the iPad for, it barely takes advantage of its technical capabilities. Nevertheless, I could not replace it with any other device.

 

[AlexanderUK]

My Paradigm = Minimalism. I won a $500 bet that I could use a Chromebook only for a year. Instead of using Textastic, I could just go to the web interface of my web hosting platform and add photos, edit files, created files etc from there. Other than complex video production, nearly everything can be done through a web interface these days.

As long as you understand that all programing is text. (Yes even Swift UI for Mac) All you need is VIM at the shell, or NotePad / TextEdit in a GUI to make stuff. That is why I have always bought the most minimal machine I can for Programing. One doesn't need Large Memory or storage. I'm not running a server, I'm running a conduit to a server for where I will deposit my code.

I posted something very similar not too long ago as my 2011 Air is coming to the end of it's life and I'm bouncing between either an M1 Laptop or (depending on what the pro looks like) an iPad. I'm a 20+ year front-end web developer mostly handling HTML/CSS/JS stack and "technically" I could boil down my workflow and do my coding on the tablet (as the apps are there to handle everything the front-end needs - mostly). Or I could stick with my existing system (the usual VSCode, iTerm, etc) most of us use.

On one hand, the laptop makes sense because it does everything, as expected, with the usual toolchain. But there's something to be said for stripping back all the processes, getting back to code, and introducing new workflows where needed (most devs get stuck in a rut of libraries, frameworks and heavy requests these days).

For the iPad you could cover much of the front-end with Textastic (code), Snippet, Inspect Browser (debug), View Source Premier (more debug), Secure Shellfish (SSH/SFTP), Working Copy (Git), Blink (Terminal), Jayson (JSON), and a few web apps like (BrowserStack, DevDocs, etc) - granted they're not all free but still, for the benefit of duel designer / developers it could be an upside as they'll have that drawing capability (with pen capable apps), and as I also do a lot of writing, being able to switch between "write article" and "watch movie" mode, makes me so tempted.

 

[Starscape]

As I've learned over a decade of expectations, Apple has no desire to make that product. The iPad is an amazing platform, but it seems to have stumbled into all this power so it had actually had no plans on being anything more than "a very awesome tablet... but not a computer".

This sums it up perfectly for me. I’ve been using iPads professionally for several years now and it’s a fantastic and invaluable tool for my work as a race boat test driver, photographer/cinematographer, and musician. How’s that for a variety of environments?

But as awesome as the iPad is, I’m always frustrated by how some seemingly basic operations on the iPad, such as certain file transfers and managing very large files (among many other things), require needless steps with ridiculous limitations. Apple has made strides in opening up the iPad’s file handling but it has a very long way to go to become a true computer replacement. I’m also constantly frustrated by the severely limited multitasking capabilities of iOS/iPadOS.