so, work forces me back into the office next week, and as part of that, i've been trying to figure out what i want to take with me for things like making notes
and so I'm using the ipad pro for a first time in a while rather than my laptop, and it's reminding me kind of why i switched - there are a lot of things it's good for, but the second it goes outside those bounds, it drops off a cliff
like, i appreciate the simplicity of limiting the amount of stuff on screen 1
it's still the best device i own for drawing, even if i've done less of that this year than i wanted to when i made creativity a yearly theme
it's excellent for consuming content (maybe not ebooks at this size)
and i still really love the hardware keyboard - it's just the right size for my hands, it's much more convenient than carrying round a fully external one, and i love how typing feels
but
my main forms of creativity other than typing things up just do not work well on it at all
i write scripts (usually powershell) to automate things, and the ipad can't do that.
not without a self hosted instance of visual studio code, or ssh-ing into an actual computer on my home network
(or as one youtuber i've seen does, basically velcroes a raspberry pi to the back of it and controls that with ssh over USB)
there are code editors on the app store, but unless you're writing python or javascript i don't think most can do much on device
a rough summary of my workflow for making a new texture for the 3D model is
- open inkscape, import UV map
- when ready, export to working textures directory
- either have windows open to both working textures directory and unity projects textures directory and copy the file, or run a terminal command to copy and overwrite
- view in unity and probably make a lot of tweaks repeating steps 2 and 3.
- add files to git commit, and commit
everything save the actual unity work is doable. i could probably learn affinity designer, and it'd give me the ability to draw directly. 2
the ipad technically can manage files although it is so bad at doing so that even during ipad only phases i've had i would much rather VNC to another machine to manage files.
there's a git client that i've heard is good but is probably designed for proper origin/remote setups rather than me mostly relying on cloud sync between devices.3
i could probably set up shortcuts for dealing with a lot of pain points
but also that would take a lot of time compared to... just doing the thing and running git add ./git commit as i please
even compared to the iphone, there's some things the ipad can't do; the iphone got support for custom lock screens and wallpapers based on focus mode (which would be pretty useful when going into the office, given that i do not necessarily want queries about "why is that dragon so big")
again, there is a duct tape and glue solution using shortcuts - but it's limited; no option to choose the crop when setting in that way
i couldn't see myself saying this a few years ago, but the second apple releases an apple silicon equivalent to the 12-inch macbook... i might trade the ipad in for that as a new take anywhere machine that just doesn't have the same limitations
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(there is a chance i could fall down a rabbit hole of tiling window managers)
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the alternative is procreate to draw rasters on the model, but it also is not good at dealing with mirrored models, and also i like vectors
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admittedly this is a bad habit but i've got enough backups in case anything goes wrong, it's only ever going to be a single user thing so i don't feel the need to overcomplicate it