Need guidance on setup

[Drecca]

I need a bit of guidance on my setup

I travel a lot. So I have a 2018 15 inch MBP and an ipad pro 11

The idea was that if I was just going to sit somewhere, I'd take the MBP, and if I was walking around, just needed to do a quick task, I'd whip out the iPad 11

The problem is that I can't really do 100% of my stuff on the ipad, and just not as fast. So I find myself dragging the MBP with me all the time.

Ideally, I'd have the 15 MBP and the 12 Macbook, but paying top dollar for 2+ year old technology seems kind of dumb at this point.

Any thoughts? The 13 MBP might be a decent compromise but I like the screen size of the 15 when I'm home...

 

[casperes1996]

What tasks cannot be achieved on the iPad? We may be able to find ways of making it doable on the device

 

[jerryk]

I agree with caperes1996. We need to understand the specific tasks that are forcing you to the MBP.

I have the exact same devices and find that I can do most of what I need without the MBP. But, since I do development in ML I can do a lot in the cloud versus on the MBP

 

[Howard2k]

13” and iPad with Sidecar for extra screen real estate.

 

[Drecca]

Thanks guys

So if it's a bunch of stuff. I run a little business, so customers come onto chat, they need something done, I need to login to SSH to servers to fix things sometimes. Other times it's looking at a spreadsheet, editing a bunch of stuff.

All things that can be done on iPad, but aren't very quick to do. Copy pasting from an email, going into terminal, running commands, while looking at other info in a browser. All doable, but all very slow on the iPad since those workflows are really desktop dependant.

 

[casperes1996]

Hm. Sure that the fix here isn't just a Smart Keyboard Folio? It may still not get you full speed, but should improve it a lot. Copy paste with cmd+c and v like normal (though selection may still need to occur with touch if it's a label text and not a text entry field.), ssh with a keyboard, spreadsheets with keyboard shortcuts, including tabbing between open workspaces with cmd+shift.

Otherwise, I think I might look at a used MacBook if I were you. I've thought before for my own workflows it'd be nice to have a tiny Mac like that but it's too much money and too old for the asking price, but used might help with those issues.

 

[jerryk]

Hm. Sure that the fix here isn't just a Smart Keyboard Folio? It may still not get you full speed, but should improve it a lot. Copy paste with cmd+c and v like normal (though selection may still need to occur with touch if it's a label text and not a text entry field.), ssh with a keyboard, spreadsheets with keyboard shortcuts, including tabbing between open workspaces with cmd+shift.

Otherwise, I think I might look at a used MacBook if I were you. I've thought before for my own workflows it'd be nice to have a tiny Mac like that but it's too much money and too old for the asking price, but used might help with those issues.

Good reply. The folio does make the keyboard shortcuts useful.

Also, iPadOS lets you split the screen and display 2 apps side by side. You can also have multiple apps running on each side including duplicate copies of the same app. It is a little clunky to use. But is getting better.

See

for more info and if that works

 

[Drecca]

Yup. I have the ASK and even got a mouse for the iPad. Maybe it's my workflow, but switching between windows seems to be a lot faster than switching between apps. I can move SSH to one side, client chat to another while looking at something in a sheet or browser. And then I can move them around as I need it.

The 13.3 inch + sidecar could be a good idea, but I was never able to focus properly with 2 monitors. I'm a one screen guy.