The Castle was illuminated in purple today. Strange but beautiful ☺️
The Castle was illuminated in purple today. Strange but beautiful ☺️
You should really subscribe to iOS Dev Weekly if you’re interested in iOS development stuff 😊 There’s always lots of interesting stuff in it!
Being able to work on iPad-specific features can sometimes be difficult, and I know that some teams find it hard to prioritize work like that. However, adding support for some of the iPad’s more powerful features doesn’t always have to be a huge amount of work, and can sometimes be a great way to delight users
It might not always seem like a good investment but I’m confident that a good iPad version will make the difference between success and failure for a lot of apps in the future.
I‘m no language nerd and I like Swift in a way, but I‘m still not sure whether I find everything good about it. This will definitely help spreading the language into other areas like server side development. Language Server Protocol - NSHipster
Face ID on the iPad is magical! It’s standing next to my Mac (dev machine!), a notification pops up, I look at the now activated screen, it automagically unlocks because of attention awareness and displays the full notification. Really amazing!
This will be an amazing concert! So excited 😆 🤘🏻🎶🤘🏻
I have no idea what’s the criteria for the iPad to allow unlocking it by tapping the space bar on the smart keyboard. Sometimes it works consistently for a period of time, then it just stops for the rest of the day. Am I doing it wrong? 🤔
One more thing that works like a charm in an iPad (well… as „good“ as one would expect): Skype for Business, even presenting a PowerPoint from OneDrive 👍🏻 Welcome to business life.
I know you should not talk about religion… but if I wanted to try server side web stuff again, which would be the language of choice these days? (I hate JavaScript, love Ruby but didn’t do anything in several years with it and work with Swift everyday.)
Let’s imagine the iPad was a device for real work. You know… stuff that professionals do. Not only media consumption for fun and stuff. That’s what we’re all waiting for isn’t it?
I think we’re well past that point. Not only are there lots and lots of people that do actual work on their iPad – people that are real professionals. There are less and less tasks that an iPad isn‘t capable of. Yes, there are shortcomings in some areas – I really struggle with the fussiness of copying and pasting things and I seem to never get used to how the Shortcuts app works – but there‘s nothing that can‘t be fixed in the future. There‘s probably not much that can‘t at least be worked around with some tricks even now already. In the end it probably all comes down to what people are accustomed to, how they are used to work and what their preferences are for how they accomplish their work. Even if some tasks might seem cumbersome, it’s still a question of how someone is willing to accept these tradeoffs for other things, that the iPad might do better or are more fun for them. There has been enough talking and writing about this topic in the last couple of weeks before and after the new iPads were released. I think it‘s unfair to dismiss the ability of the iPad to do real tasks on and to belittle the work of people that run their business or core parts of it on iOS. I for one are still undecided on whether this style of work is really for me. I think it is. But I need more time to really try it out.
I was lucky enough to get my hands on a brand new 12.9” iPad Pro last week. Without joking, this might well be the best computer I ever used. I didn’t really have a deeper look at the iPad until a couple of months ago when I tried how it feels like trying to do some actual work on my old iPad Air. I already saw that there are a lot of tasks in my daily work that I could do on it, but it still felt quite cumbersome most of the time, so I lost it and unknowingly went back to the Mac again. Then came the 12.9” iPad and I thought: “Oh well, let’s try it out for a while and see what this feels like. But I will never really use this. It’s just too darn huge.” Well… I am barely able to put this thing down when I sit in front of it. I really love it. iOS is the same as it was a couple of months ago, but the size is the real deal for me. This suddenly feels like a real computer. Together with the smart keyboard folio and the pencil, this thing is not only gorgeous and blazingly fast. I can really work on that thing.
There are still jobs I can’t do with it though. I’m an iOS and Mac developer for the most part of my work life and that’s one of the few things iOS can’t do yet. The iPad could probably run most development projects with the blink of an eye, comparing the benchmarks to ”real” computers. But there is no Xcode available for iOS. I would run across the streets screaming if this would become available at WWDC next summer. This would be the turning point for me. I can do most of my daily work on this iPad. In fact, for the last couple of days that’s what I did. I’m a corporate bee, so besides sitting in front of Xcode I spend a lot of time writing eMails, collaborating in Slack, editing Word documents or looking at Powerpoint presentations. I really can see myself using the iPad as my main device, falling back to the Macbook only for development stuff in Xcode or related tasks where I need a Terminal or specific tools. Everything else? Should be manageable on the iPad. At least at the moment this is a lot of fun.
Now, what about Xcode on the iPad? Is this impossible?
I don’t think so! The hardware can do it. And if it’s not the fastest development machine yet? Oh well… there’s still the Mac for more speed, and I doubt that this is actually the case anymore. But please Apple, let me do my coding on an iPad! I’m willing to take a hit in compile time, if necessary. The support for external 5k displays via USB-C could make Xcode on the iPad a really amazing experience in my opinion.
This would be a setup I could imagine: The iPad attached to an external display using an external keyboard. The display shows my code on one side and the app I’m building in a split view on the other side. No simulator anymore!? The iPad screen is used for documentation and/or the debugger. Everything I need, running on a device I can carry around anywhere I’d like to. Even without the external display I really think there’s a way to make the IDE work. It get’s harder to think of a good solution if you also remove the external keyboard from the scenario. But hey… why should there be no other way to work in an IDE than what we know now? The iPad and iOS already changed a lot of habits and what users expect from their apps. Maybe there’s also a different way to think of an IDE, so that it can be used on a smaller screen?
There are lots of other problems, I know. A lot of issues to solve… what happens if the app crashes while debugging? It will better not bring the whole system down! I guess technical problems like this are the biggest reason why there is no development environment available on iOS yet. But I really hope that either these problems get solved or Apple comes up with another solution I would never ever think of in my life. The playgrounds app is an example. It’s no full blown IDE and the main purpose clearly isn’t building apps from scratch. But it shows that it’s possible to edit and run Swift on an iPad. I even would be fine if the iPad would only be the code editor for my Xcode project and the compilation would have to run on a remote machine like a Mac mini somewhere, running the simulator on the server and only VNCing it to the iPad.
Whatever to solution might be… This is the dream I have. I think with this, I could do 99% of my work off of my iPad. And at the moment that’s really what I want… doing some actual work like professionals do.
Played around with the Shortcuts app to get a tiny thing done. I’m not sure this thing is made for me. It probably needs a lot more practice, but for now the way these actions work, is quite weird to me. Besides that, I’m still in love with this big iPad!
Also really great this week: Connected #217: A Brief Moment in 1995. Another inspiring discussion about working on an iPad. This is a good one!
I thought I’d just try out this 12.9” iPad Pro. ”It’s too big” I thought… well… I think I’m in love with this thing 😱 Yes, some stuff is still cumbersome. But the bigger screen makes these things a little better. And that screen… oh my! What an awesome piece of technology!
I just got to try out the new Macbook Air for a minute. First time for me to try out the new keyboard… Wow! The difference to my 2016 MacBook Pro is incredible! I still hate my keyboard, but could get used to the new one!
I will never understand why elections are held on a Tuesday ¯_(ツ)_/¯
It’s funny how the perception of everything not Apple is that it’s much cheaper. I struggle with the pricing of Apple’s products and everybody tells me “Go get a Surface Pro instead”. I looked at the prices and wow 🤯 For a similar configuration which probably has a worse performance and less features than an iPad, it’s even more expensive. And that’s not even considering my investment in the whole ecosystem I would have to switch. It’s tough… no-pro iPads are no option because of the storage options, “old” iPad pro is not that much cheaper for what you get with the new ones, Android tablets also are a no-go. I guess I have to bite the bullet.
I wonder what happens when the Republicans win the midterm elections. What would this say about the country? From the outside it seems just like two years ago. Democrats in a bubble, mostly sure „they“ will win. I guess we’ll see… The world crosses their fingers they’re right.
Banks such as HVB and Bunq this morning sent out emails to customers announcing their imminent support for Apple’s mobile payment system in the country.
Of course my bank doesn’t support it 😉 I do wonder whether it’s possible to use a credit card even if your bank does not officially support Apple Pay? Why are cards and banks listed next to each other?
Yes! Got me some tickets to Rammstein live next year 🤘🏻🎸🎶
This week’s episode of ATP is why I like this podcast. Very energetic and insightful. They address a couple of issues that concern me with Apple’s products I didn’t think of yet.
I wrote down all the subscriptions I pay for every month or year. Holy 🐱 It’s just a coffee per month times a bajillion! Everything moving to a subscription model is a problem. I throw way too much money at stuff. I really need to consolidate what I need and pay for.
First steps in reducing the amount of paper in my office. I use a wireless document scanner to automatically put new snail mail on my Synology where it is OCR‘d. 99% of the paper can go to the trash now and I can search everything in Finder, accessible from anywhere. \o/
I‘m more than excited that Rammstein will be on tour with a new album next year 🤩 I really hope I can get a ticket to a show when they go on sale next week!
All the best for all the NaNoWriMo participants! I have no idea where you all manage to carve out the time to write this much 😅 I admire your creativity!
I guess I need to start start thinking about a time after using Apple products. The prices are insane.