Is there a technical reason ipad isn't for programming/dev?

Definitely agree with you. It's a very strange irony. At the moment we've got phones and tablets with console-grade graphics and desktop-level CPUs.

However the vast majority of games on the App Store are freemium shovelware. It's a big fault of the developers but partly Apple's fault with them pushing iAds. By trying to get developers into the ecosystem by motivating them with money from ads was a bad idea IMHO - attracts the wrong kind of developers.

If you remember apps when the App Store was first released, it was something new and powerful, and people were really coming up with some great apps and games. I think the Flappy Bird revenue and the following influx of clones really cemented the issue.

I wish Apple had the fruits (pardon the expression) to completely kill in-app purchases and iAds. It shouldn't be up to them to shape up the industry - I wish larger developers were more motivated to make good apps and games because they're good - but try explain that to a money-hungry CEO of a development company? "Oh, we can spend x amount of money and x amount of resources and x amount of time making a really, really good game that makes the most of the hardware and blows people's minds. Or we can spend a tenth of that to make some addictive shovelware that will give us ten times the profit."

 

iOS is fairly locked down/in, and there's no fully accessible file system. The hardware isn't the limiting factor, though it could benefit from better physical connectivity. Even if some "desktop class programs" (I have some trouble with that phrase) would not be affected by this, these limitations determine the user base of the device, and the target audience.

That aside, I believe the AppStore culture doesn't lend itself well to expensive apps. People don't mind spending a couple dollars on an app, and plenty are okay with $20 products as well, but already start grumbling and hesitating at that price point. But how many, on iOS, would be willing to spend hundreds on an app? This might in part be a chicken-egg problem, too. No market because of no products, no products because of no market for them.

Just speculating.

 

Oh my, yes. I agree whole heartedly. Things were so exciting back then - I remember so many unique and innovative apps fondly. RJDJ, Touch Grind, Samurai, Spider, and many other quality games pushing the envelope as far as what touch screen controls could mean. And then the first round of productivity apps like the original Brushes - wow what a great app that was (and to an extent still is).

As it is now, I rarely even go on the app store at all. Sometimes I wish Apple had a more strict approval process and really curated what got released on their platform. That might not be a good solution though, I admit.

That said, I'm excited to see if the iPad Pro can shake things up a bit.

 

I think that they are coming. I am encouraged by the iPad Pro and the Adobe's and Microsoft's apps. Having Cisco on board is good as well. I do think that Apple needs to redesign the App Store and to give key developers some incentives if they want to move iPad away from being a consumer content device.

 

This thread reminds me how much I miss the early days of iOS, before freemium and IAP came along and ruined things, and there were so many fun, inventive games. Remember "Lite" versions to demo a 99 cent app before committing that big wad of pennies? LOL!

*sigh*

 

Not too many Pro apps. Panic has been coming out with some excellent Pro apps. like Coda and Prompt.

 

Ill have to look in to that. If theres any reason to. I havent done that before.

 

I like prompt - I can use it to ssh into a server or a cloud-based dev environment, like Nitrous. Great for things like Ruby and Go, but not so much for Swift and Objective C. I kind of need an IDE to be useful.

 

I also used to use this app before they removed support: http://appshopper.com/productivity/fastcode
It was like an Xcode IDE without the compiler.