Motivation

I’ve been using the iPad exclusively as my main computing machine since June 2022. (This post is, of course, written on my iPad.)

Before then, I relied heavily on a Macbook Pro 13-inch at my previous office and didn’t have my home computer for the last two years after I gave my one to my friend’s son who aspired to study online.

I do serious software development with Python, Typescript, Kotlin, Golang, and Rust. And thus, I was wondering if I could do serious web development with the iPad.

After a quick online research, I found that even programming seems possible on the iPad with its keyboard as well as well-known touch-screen creative activities. So, I bought and tried using the iPad for light development and learning experience.

Spec Details

• 11-inch iPad Pro Wi-Fi 128G
• Magic Keyboard (Not Smart keyboard)

The 13-inch screen was a bit too heavy to carry, and Smart Keyboard was too thin for a heavy typing workload.

What happened in the first month?

1st week: programming seems impossible!! Just watch Youtube!
2nd week: a code fix is possible, but serious devevelopment is not.
3rd week: entire software development works with cloud IDEs and cloud services! AWS, GCP, Gitpot!

Pros

• Stateless! No dependency and data are left in the local computer!
• It is so lightweight that I can be anywhere with it! I flew to a couple of vacation places and enjoyed coding at hotels and cafes.
• The touch screen is terrific when I want subtle and interactive maneuvers. For instance, I showed my journey map to my friends.

Cons

Need to know alternative tricks to local machine development.

• No terminal (use virtual machine such as ec2 and gce)
• No local Git (use cloud machine or Working Copy)
• Limited local IDEs (Gitpod, Stackblitz, Code Server)

Overall

• Coding is definitely possible
• Serious software development is limited due to the heavy reliance on cloud IDEs and cloud services. You need to bear with its inconvenience in exchange for lightweight device benefits.
• This setup is not recommended for beginners. It is better to learn computer basics with standard computers.

Cloud IDE articles

A guide to writing code on an iPad
We tried 10 online code editors