YouTube Transcript:
I tried coding on my iPad for 7 days

coding on a tablet like an ipad might
seem impossible back in the day but
these days there are tools and apps out
there that really challenge this
assumption so
i wanted to see if it's possible to set
up my ipad as my dedicated machine for
everything from coding to checking
emails to making websites and even
building apps
this is something that i was always
interested in ever since i was able to
get vs code set up on my iphone to start
coding
i did that video up here you can check
out but this is taking it to another
level
it's making sure that i don't have to
switch between my computer my laptop my
devices
because that can become a hassle
sometimes and having just a single
device for everything could be really
cool
but i don't know if i can even do this
so let's find out the first thing i did
was jump on my ipad to see if there are
any existing apps
i looked up terms like code editor and
it actually came up with quite a few
the problem was that a lot of them
require you to ftp into the machine to
be able to edit i don't want that that
seems too difficult but since there
weren't any other solutions i gave it a
try i'm using an
app called coder code editor which has
ftp and a couple of other features which
we'll check out
i have over 100 websites i managed so i
created an ftp account and logged in and
i failed to log in over and over until i
figured out i had caps lock on
ftp is never my favorite thing but when
i finally got it working i was pretty
happy as any good developer the very
first thing i did was turn on dark mode
now i can actually take a look at what
it's like trying to code
on my ipad and the first thing i found
out is that
it's actually not that easy while
normally i'm pretty good at touch typing
typing on an ipad and trying to do some
code on there just doesn't work very
well
after getting frustrated i gave up on it
pretty quickly and moved over to using
the apple magic
keyboard for ipad and while this
keyboard or case is pretty much as heavy
as the ipad i'm ready to go
i'm going to give this a solid test by
actually doing some development on a
wordpress site where i'm putting
together a custom form that's going to
email some information
now when i was testing this out i did
notice a few things
the first is actually it was quite
useful to be able to code and touch
on the screen where i wanted my cursor
to go but one thing that was a little
bit annoying was switching between
windows
because it just didn't feel very
intuitive and maybe that's just because
i haven't gotten used to it just yet
i did try doing a split screen that's
where you have the browser on one side
and the code on the other
but the problem with that is that you
just don't have much real estate to work
with
and sometimes switching between each one
also has a bit of an issue where the
touch just doesn't work
but after a bit of trial and error i
sort of got it to work and i don't mind
it either
it's another day and i had a suggestion
from a friend to use my tablet to remote
into
my home computer there's great apps for
this like teamviewer and others
and having a look i noticed that
teamviewer actually has quite a few bad
reviews so i decided to try something
different out
i found one called jump desktop and this
is an application which had some really
good
five-star reviews it requires me to
install a small application on the
computer as well as the tablet but once
it's done it's pretty much a one-click
login and i'm able to
access my desktop computer immediately
it had a number of cool features like
being able to run at 60fps
over the local network it's faster and
over the internet it works pretty good
too
and in terms of having a look at this i
can immediately run up vs code and
continue my coding
exactly where i left off when i was
working from home
now i should essentially be able to just
pick up my laptop and work from anywhere
so i just went to the kitchen and gave
it a shot and when i tried it out then
yes
it was actually much better than using
an ftp program and being able to use my
computer
being able to jump desktop into my
favorite computer which is my home
computer
where i have everything set up the way i
like is awesome
then i can pretty much have vs code
running on the ipad
with virtualization on my favorite
browsers or my environment ready to go
doesn't matter where i am i'm going to
try this out over a few days and see how
i find it
and let you guys know using remote
desktop over a couple of days
at different locations to do different
tasks i found it very useful
being able to simply remote to my main
computer no matter
where i am is like having a powerhouse
in my pocket my tablet was performing
the stuff that i normally would do in
terms of building applications and
writing code
all in the fingertips of just the ipad
which normally wouldn't be able to do
this
it was fast and quick and to be honest i
don't even need a mouse the keyword's
enough because all the applications like
vs code have hotkeys enabled
and the only drawback that i was feeling
was that the screen size
was still a little bit small with the
resolution sometimes not fitting in all
the windows that i really wanted
what i learned yesterday is that
essentially this ipad while being good
is pretty much impossible to use without
a keyboard so it's looking more like i
need something that's very similar to a
laptop
but as i move forward and do more
development on it i also found that the
screen is a little bit too small
so i'm going to try and connect it up to
a bigger monitor
using this cable that i got just over
here and this
is just a usbc to hdmi cable
and what it's going to let me do is
connect up this ipad to a 49 inch
samsung screen i don't even know if this
will work but let's also try and see if
it will
so the moment of truth let's connect up
the cable
and see what happens well looks like
that worked
but not the way i expected i
did get my ipad working on my samsung
screen but the resolution wasn't quite
right
it was either too stretched or cropped
from the left and right side
but that's okay i did figure out a
resolution that works
which was just about a 2.5 k but
with that resolution i can do some of my
work now
and while this is probably an
improvement it sort of defeats the
purpose of using an ipad
when i could just use my own computer
now i've done this for about a week now
and the results are quite surprising
to be honest i thought at the very start
that i wouldn't be able to do it
i was a little bit skeptical of whether
it would even be practical
but once i figured out that i could do
remote desktop straight into my computer
then using the tablet as the main device
at least when going out was quite
practical
yes the keyboard might be missing some
of the functionality like the f1 keys
but if you do take a keyboard along
it pretty much covers everything that i
need to do that i would normally do on a
laptop
so i wouldn't even need to take my
laptop with me the only issues that i
really had were sort of like
missing out on the mouse but i don't
really use the mouse that often and
the screen size was a little bit small
but you can get used to that
yes if you're doing responsive design
then having a
browser cannot be done in a chrome
window
or a safari window on the ipad but if
your remote desktop in
then you basically have full control
with devtools so all of those features
come across
and you can start using and programming
and coding just like you would normally
the other part is that with the ipad i
did like the ability of using the touch
screen
to be able to tap where i'm writing my
code or check what i'm doing on the
browser
so that actually did improve my workflow
a tiny bit and that was a surprising
thing i didn't think i'd be doing
but otherwise this was a heaps fun
experience let me know if this is
something that you guys enjoyed because
if it is i'd love to do more tests like
this to
try out how we can test the boundaries
of how we traditionally do coding and
maybe mix it up a little bit otherwise
i'll see you in the next one
see ya