I've been able to accomplish the "meander around, finding cool new places to work" thing pretty well with an 11" MB Air (and optional tethered iPhone).
It doesn't have the ridiculous battery life of an iPad, but other than that it essentially gives you the same portability without feeling like you're constraining yourself to a subpar development environment (I've tried doing serious web dev on an iPad, but the lack of a web inspector and the ability to remap caps lock as control are both dealbreakers for me).
Seconded. 11" MB Air feels just as portable as my iPad. That said, the author seems to be getting positive effects from using exclusively remote tools...
Like you, I see draw backs. I don't want to use vim as my primary editor, and I hate that I can't have tabs loading in the background in the web browser, or can't be on Skype while doing something else...
Everyone has a phone, for most definitions of everyone. Skype works on every major smartphone platform (and several minor platforms). What would I use my phone for if not for holding a conversation?
When you can get an 11" MB AIR for $1000, using an iPad in this way feels "forced". I like his thoughts on Win 8 Surface tablet, though: side-by-side apps, better integrated keyboard, likely better multitasking (or at least a simpler way of switching between apps....
I think the Surface point raises a larger issue that ought to have Apple and MS worried- when you're doing everything remotely like the author is, your actual device doesn't matter much. As long as he has competent SSH, and a suite of basic apps, he's good to go.
> As long as he has competent SSH, and a suite of basic apps, he's good to go.
Totally agreed. There's a nice little conversation going on here about a Macbook Air vs. an iPad, but shouldn't this raise the point that a $300 netbook can do all this and more?
If all you're using is SSH and a web browser, why spring for the high-end (and high-priced) Apple hardware?
That is exactly my travel rig. I don't use it full-time, however-- I would spring for a lenovo ultra probably if I was going to do that.
But I have the advantage of the dev environment I like (even mimics the full rig), I can work on a plane without wifi (my netbook runs servers just fine), and I can boot Win if I need to. It also fits easily onto even a small airplane tray/table.
The only drawback is that unity isn't quite as good as the netbook remix ubuntu used to have. And some progs like mysql workbench don't respect monitor size and make their windows too large (thank god for virtual desktops).
I will probably do this for my next 'round' of tech investment again rather than go ipad.
How much is $500 worth to you in terms of productivity, though? Depends on how much you earn per hour, but for a lot of people, $500 isn't much in the big scheme of things.
Alternatively, since we're drawing arbitrary amounts of time from the air, $500 / (10 hrs/week * 1 wk) = $50/hr. Meanwhile I'm paying two months of rent with the money I saved not buying a Macbook.
How much time/money do you save when you don't have to wait for your code to compile before you can leave, or when you don't have to worry about making sure you save before your battery dies? I can spend $1000 on a laptop and work on it with the same constraints as any workstation, or I can put that $500 to several years of Linode and have money left over to type "go build massive_project" then meet my girl for a coffee while it chugs away in the background without a worry.
This is essentially what I'm doing these days. I wrote quite a lot of my upcoming CoffeeScript book (and its example applications) this way in Istanbul. Spending the morning in one waterpipe cafe, then afternoon in another.
Battery life was the main hindrance, as I would always need to find a place with a convenient power socket at least for the other half of the day. If somebody made an MBA-like, Linux-capable machine with a full-day battery, I'd buy it no matter the cost.
Sounds like a reasonable option. According to Wikipedia, the 11" MBA has a 35 Wh battery, so additional 60 Wh would indeed be a big improvement. From their Amazon specs (http://amzn.com/B00449I41K):
High capacity 60-Watt-hour lithium ion battery allows you to use your MacBook, MacBook Pro, or MacBook Air for up to 20 hours
That page also gives the weight as 362 grams (12.8 ounces). But then you'll also need the MacBook airline adapter which is another 49$. The battery itself is 168$ (and the same amount in €).
Seems like a valid option if I decide to stay with MBAs after February.
Update, Amazon reviews don't seem to agree:
So although it won't charge my MBA battery it looks like it will power it for over 3 hours (three stars)
i believed the 20 hour run time they posted. right. sure. i bought it so i could use my macbook at the cabin (no electricity). what i got was, at best, 3 1/2 hours of power from it (one star)
If I use the HyperMac with just the MacBook Pro 13 inch I get probably about 2 hours of use out of this external battery. (five stars)
Can't comment from a working perspective, but Istanbul - as with all of Turkey I've been to - is awesome (and I've lived in a bunch of places). All the exotic of North Africa filled with people who are honest, decent, friendly, and won't harass you. If I get myself mobile again, Turkey is top on my list of places to spend 3-6 months. Did I mention the food is great?
Istanbul is awesome. Scenery is beautiful, and the waterpipe cafes don't mind if you sit there the whole day, as long as you order tea or something every now and then. Quite a lot of them have decent WiFi as well, though many sites are blocked in Turkey.
I haven't been to Berlin but have spent a lot of time in Istanbul.
Istanbul is big, really really big, like mind-bogglingly big. It's Europe's biggest city (although technically part of it is in Asia too) but if you want to live somewhere posh like Bebek or Nisantasi it's as expensive as anywhere else nice in a major European city. If on the other hand you're prepared to live in a less nice area or a bit further out then there's some good deals to be had.
If you're living somewhere properly then the quality of the food is far higher than that accessible to me here in my bit of the UK, eating out is generally more expensive in terms of average income percentage but typically less expensive than London in terms of raw costs.
I would highly recommend Istanbul to anyone looking to try something a bit different. It really does feel like nowhere else in the world, a chaotic mishmash of east and west but with a great vibe and great people.
If any of you guys need help / advice on just about anything in the city, let me know. I'm a Turkish expat designer (from Istanbul) living in New York—I wouldn't mind helping a fellow HNer.
I don't remember the rent exactly. It may have been somewhat similar or slightly more expensive in Istanbul. But eating out is definitely more expensive there, unless you want to subsist on lahmacun.
It depends on what you eat, but there's far more than lahmacun on the diet. Now, you're probably sticking to Turkish food (Chinese is going to start at 15TL, the equivalent of 8.5 dollars or so) but I'm regularly eating decent food for the 3-8 dollar (2.5-6 euro) range, with drink.
Great produce is also ridiculously cheap here, which makes cooking a much better deal.
My friend Matthias (wiemann.name) does that with his MB Air and he's totally happy with it. If you need web inspector, an iPad really isn't an option. I'd still recommend trying out a remote server, it's fun.
Yeah, I'd definitely love to try it at some point. Besides the cool stuff it enables you to do (like the data-crunching you mentioned in the article), there's definitely something really appealing about the minimalism of relying almost exclusively on command-line tools in a more meaningful way than just having a terminal window open as one of a dozen apps in a window manager.
I use an iPad in the same way, after switching from an MBA. the big advantages of the iPad are inbuilt 3G (I get 5gb/month for peanuts on a special offer from a couple of years ago), battery life (I never got more than 3 hours from the MBA), I move more (lean over to do some browsing and shift my position or walk around). And most importantly I am far less likely to switch to HN or some other distraction.
The big disadvantage is the lack of a web inspector, but I'm mainly working on back-end stuff at the moment.
I get 7 hours on my retina MBP, too. At 4.6 pounds, it's about as portable as anything I've ever used--I actually sold my 11" Air a little while ago because I was annoyed with the small screen.
I ended up getting a Chromebook a few weeks ago as a cheap machine to hack and do interviews while my MBA was in for repairs. For not being much higher on the food chain than a thin client, it's pretty much perfect. Chrome's identical to Win/Mac/Linux Chrome (inspector and all); SSH works fine, "search" key (fka capslock) can even be remapped to ctrl.
On the Samsung 550 (the only model my Best Buy had on the floor), didn't do any scientific testing but definitely in the 5-7hr range. It's noticeably thicker than a MBA, but not by much; and IMHO the 12" (matte!) size is the sweet spot on a laptop. Unsure on exact specs, but plenty fast enough. Keyboard and click pad are solid as well (best pad I've ever used outside of Apple). Provided you can work within it's niche, it's a great machine for $450. Was sad to have to take it back (not in a position to throw money around I don't absolutely have to).
I just got a chromebook and I HATE it. The software is ok, but I hate the hardware. Particularly the touchpad. Just awful. Doesn't do tap-to-click correctly and scrolls poorly.
I couldn't recommend it to anyone for anything other than a couch surfing machine, but then again, a tablet is just as good for that.
I can't see it becoming a main machine for me as-is. CrOS's laser focus on "the cloud" makes it extremely well suited for remote-centric work; if you can't commit 100% to doing everything from browser windows and remote terminals, you'll be happier with a more standard PC. For me, it's perfect as a backup but I'm too much of a control freak to be wholly reliant on a remote server.
I work everywhere with my MacBook Air 13" (from the bus, on benches in parks and malls, in my inlaws-to-be's living room, at restaurants), and with a 3G aircard, it's great.
Though I did the same with my iPad 1, and it was mostly great too, depending on what I needed to do.
Agreed. It seems like you'd also want the ability to occasionally hook up to a bigger monitor. Do you find the 11" screen bothers you at all, or have you gotten used to it?
I don't get it either. A modern laptop is just as portable and far, far more capable. Actually after getting a nexus 7 recently I have no interest in a bigger tablet.
This is an impossible setup for a front end dev. As you mentioned Mobile Safari is junk. To add to that, its debug tools are laughable. Don't even think about cross browser testing unless you have additional remote systems + VNC.
I tried an iPad + keyboard + remote vim a while back and found it slowed me down significantly. Having to take my hands off the keyboard and swipe or use the button slows my flow. Writing code and want to look something up? Swiping to Safari is much slower than Cmd+tab to a real browser.
The original article inspired me to get a retina ipad and wireless keyboard with hopes of connecting to my home server and developing with issh/tmux/vim/chrome and working anywhere from my tethered 4g phone. It was an immediate disappointment: issh is extremely unreliable, has awkward rendering glitches and a UI that can't be configured to actually fullscreen. Oh and it times out after a short while, especially if you've switched to some other app. iOS can't remap caps lock to control either, which would have otherwise made it usable for me. I didn't waste any more time attempting to fix these issues; the only way I see this working perfectly is if I had actual linux running on the ipad.
I have a love-hate relationship with iSSH. I use it every day and don't have any problems with graphical glitches, despite using screen and a 256-colour Vim scheme. I'm not using a retina iPad though; maybe that's related.
I'd love an actual fullscreen iSSH too. If only it was open source so we could improve it...!
The only thing I have to compare it to is connectbot, which works great on all of my android phones. It actually keeps the connection for as long as it stays running and at least tries to support touch events (scrolling with your finger sends pageup/down apparently). Ideally, I would be able to touch the screen and resize tmux panes, vim's split windows as well as scrolling in tmux's copy mode and vim. None of that is possible and I'd rather use the keyboard anyway, but not being able to remap caps lock is a serious issue for me. iSSH's only feature to alleviate this is to remap the option key to control, but that has its own set of issues and isn't where I want it to be on the keyboard anyway.
About the Surface. I've been doing some Windows 8 HTML5/JS SDK development for the past few months using a Vaio All-in-One with a touchscreen and the responsiveness and feel of HTML5 is on par with the C#/Xaml environment. Using the apps, you absolutely can not tell which SDK is being used.
Of course this is on a fast x86 chip. No one has been able to get a comparable experience on a table or phone yet. I'm slightly worried that things won't be as crisp or as nice on the Surface ARM (and other ARM tablets). If it is it's not just a step up from Mobile Safari, Chrome for Android, and Firefox for Android, but a major step forward.
First of all, thanks for writing about your experiences! This was an inspiration for me when attempting to do something similar on a Transformer Prime. Unfortunately the Asus keyboard wasn't good enough, and that fell into misuse.
However, this has prompted me to re-evaluate what I need on my work computer. Essentially, there are only three things I actually run: vim, Vagrant and a browser.
This means that when the lease period on my current Air ends in February I will have a lot of freedom to choose my next "workstation". Theoretically it could be any small-and-light laptop, or maybe even something like iPad or Surface. Though even with the little requirements I have, I'm not so keen to go Windows...
Oh, and an actual question: I do quite a lot of front-end development (see for instance http://createjs.org/ ). One thing that mobile browsers lack is access to proper inspectors and JavaScript consoles. Any ideas on that?
"One thing that mobile browsers lack is access to proper inspectors and JavaScript consoles. Any ideas on that?"
When you have to, can't you VNC to a machine with proper inspectors and consoles?
I don't ipad exclusively, nor do I front end very much, but whenever ssh or run-a-client-on-the-ipad fails me, VNC usually is the solution. I guess rdesktop works too. Given a decent xserver on the ipad I could do a few more things.
Well, I plan to use a Surface as a client but my development will stil be on Linux, of course. The whole no-browsers-except-IE-on-a-surface might be a real killer for anyone doing web development though.
True of iPad as well, no? I'm still confused about the Windows RT / IE rule. I remember that they put special provisions for browsers to have elevated rights. Then I remember 3rd party browsers not being allowed on the "desktop" of RT, and then there is some suggestion that they won't be allowed to JIT even within Metro. There's been enough conflicting stories that I really want a detailed summary from someone at Microsoft or Mozilla on what is and is not allowed.
The last I heard of this is that the Metro versions of the different browsers can run on Intel-based Windows 8 devices, but not on ARM-powered Windows RT.
If you get a Surface Pro, you could run any browser you want, Firebug and even Linux natively. You'd be giving up on some of the battery life, weight, thickness and price over the RT version though.
While I am on board with the Linode, I can't imagine coding on something that small. As it is, I have vim on 1920x1080 and a full tmux on the other screen. How did you get used to seeing so much less code at one time?
I use a fairly large font because readability is important to me, so I get something like 85 x 60 characters on the screen. Width-wise, that's fine (and I set Vim to wrap long lines anyway). I also would have thought I'd miss that wider overview, but somehow I don't. I've become quite proficient with vim's navigation and movement commands - perhaps that helps a lot. I sometimes code on a 1600x1080 monitor with at least 6 times as many characters on the screen, but I don't notice the difference any more.
Except: when merging changes. Then I really want the screen divided into 4 sections, and the iPad is too small to do that comfortably.
That said, I've noticed a trend in my coding style to prefer conciseness and locality. This may be a subconscious reaction to the smaller viewport I'm using.
I use vanilla SSH and GNU screen. I have a ping of 150ms to my Linode at the moment and that's absolutely fine. I think above 300 it starts to get a bit hairy. The Vim movement commands are extremely tolerant of a laggy connection, which helps with perception a lot, I think.
I started using this after you posted this. I'm Australian (WA) and working over SSH to servers in the US with 230-260ms this tool has changed everything. Very, very nice.
Not really. You could certainly do the same with one of those and connecting through to a remote server. A netbook without a remote server wouldnt' be powerful enough for my work.
Once you've got a quad core server doing the heavy lifting, why not use an iPad for the interface? It doubles as a fantastic entertainment device and looks great too.
Well, i was trying to get at what benefits you thought the iPad gave you (other than ease of setup, and being a great content consumption device).
(While I don't know exactly what you do) you would probably still need a remote server, but Linux would give you a much more mature development platform, with many IDEs including the light table that you mentioned you missed.. with this and a proper shell you would be able to at least do some proper work with no data connection. And still keep the battery life courtesy of ARM.
Join a startup as the 3rd employee and spend the next decade building their software from the ground up to a profitable product that leads in its field.
I throw it all in a rucksack. The keyboard + iPad are lighter than any laptop I've seen that I'd like to use, but it's purely a matter of taste.
Having a keyboard that's not joined to the screen has been convenient a number of times though - I can hang the iPad in a bush and rest the keyboard on my knees, for example.
maybe i'm really missing the point, but once you attach a keyboard to an ipad you've are bound to have a sub-par user experience.
in terms of portability, i see no difference between ipad + kb and a macbook air. heck, i see very little difference between ipad + kb and ipad + macbook air, which is what i carry around. ipad for reading, macbook air for coding and writing.
iOS does not seem like an environment designed for people who spend most of their time writing and typing or otherwise creating. rather, it is an environment optimized for what most people do with their computers most of the time: consume information. that doesn't mean you can't create on the ipad. OSX, on the other hand, is such an environment. there is no reason to pick either or, you can have both at relatively low cost.
This isn't an article about iPad or about tablets. It's an article about working in the cloud.
Considering all of the comments here, is there a service where you can use a browser that's hosted in the cloud, but have its UI appear in a client over something like VNC?
Great article! I have an iPad 2 and a Macbook air 11''. I've tried using the iPad for development (I do web development, both front end and backend) and really couldn't use it. I do have an external keyboard but I believe it's just an interface issue. I find that I'm very used to the touchpad/keyboard combo and that speeds me up a whole lot. Requiring to reach for the iPad to swipe something is a MASSIVE annoyance. Plus, the fact that you can't Alt+Tab between applications (WTH is THAT all about ?!)
As far as weight is concerned the Macbook air is an absolutely WONDERFUL device. Coming in at 2.2lbs it's almost the same weight as my iPad+keyboard. Plus, the fact that it's a shell design (case closes and protects the screen+keyboard) works way better for me than an iPad could (though arguably one could get a similar 'protector' for the iPad).
Oh and the kicker ? I'm currently traveling fulltime with my girlfriend (have been doing so for a year now..) and between us, we carry an iPad2+keyboard and Macbook air combo. We do all sorts of things including photo editing, video editing, web development (for me..) on this combination.
But using the iPad for any useful work ? Nuh-uh!
Given our situation, it's also difficult to get good WiFi connectivity most of the time and the macbook air's wifi hardware is better than the iPad's by far. (in terms of wireless reception quality). There've been plenty of times that I pick up the WiFi signal on the Air and then share it over bluetooth for the iPad. More info on our gear is here: http://bkpk.me/about-a-z/
The author must be very tolerant or otherwise accustomed to lag. He says "no noticeable lag" but is 3G even that good on paper? Wavering pings of 100-1000ms are pretty normal on 3G in my experience, so given a round trip, if the difference is an optimistic 200ms that's should be pretty noticeable when typing, tailing logs or jumping around vim on a remote system versus doing it locally.
I'm sure you can build confidence and get used to pulling off a string of moves with no immediate visual feedback, but it sounds like something you'd have to get used to tolerating, rather than not notice?
Yeah, that has to be horrible. I remember working remotely from Thailand, and had around 150ms to a linode in Japan, and it was infuriating. Even worse when trying to access services at home, with latency around 300ms. With latency over 30ms you start to notice it. There are good tools out there, though. Mosh is one of them.
The problem with replacing the iPad with a MacBook Air 11" is that there are way way more distractions on the MacBook. Maybe this also works so well for the author because the iPad is very limited. He basically degraded his super-multi-functional laptop to a simpler device that just does email/web/ssh very well. Maybe that is part of the reason why it works so well for him.
I still have the first ipad generation and I can't see a damn thing outside. Do you have a screen protector or something special? Is it fixed in the second ipad generation?
Also, what kind of programming do you do? I often hack in plain console.. but more often than not, I need a browser with the inspector/console open and lots of documentation tabs.. How do you make it work for these cases?
fascinating stuff, makes me long for a good IDE on iPad that doesn't feel like a "toy", that can handle Objective-C for example. In an ideal world, Apple would be working on "iCode" as we speak... ;)
Yeah, I love Vim as an IDE, but there are a features I'd want to import from other IDEs if I had a magic VimScript wand...
Edit: correction - I love Vim as an editor with incredibly powerful macro and scripting capabilities. That makes up for a lot of otherwise missing IDE features, but it could be so much better.
Working with limitations is what yields creativity. But unlike the limitations of computing's yesteryear, the limitations of the iPad seem artificial. OSX is built from BSD UNIX, and iOS is built from OSX. Why should it be so limited? Where is the "iPad Pro"? The uncrippled version with USB and SD card slots.
Have you tried just using VNC to access your macbook? This would turn the ipad into a windows, linux, and mac osx device, plus no monthly cost. Also, Android tablets could do the same thing. If safari won't cut it, try chrome. It seems a bit odd none of this was mentioned/tried. Also, look at the magnetic logitech ipad keyboard.
I've been wanting to try this for a while, the one thing holding me back is frontend work, day to day I do a mixture of frontend and backend development and I'm concerned that Mobile Safari/ Chrome might not cut it. Has anyone had any experience with this?
Mobile Safari is a bit of a pain for frontend developement. There's the javascript-based FireBug but it's a far cry from the real thing or the Chrome developer tools.
Of course, you don't need to do it all day every day - you can use your laptop for frontend work and an iPad for backend development in the park on nice days.
Thanks, definitely going to give it a go for backend development. It might actually be quite nice to have some forced segmentation between backend and frontend work to avoid getting distracted by the design at the wrong times.
Do you have many problems with sunlight on the screen/ glare?
I'll be curious to see how he finds the surface keyboard. I'm dubious of the one that doesn't have physical keys on it. I find it really hard to type effectively without that physical feedback.
Great to read the year-after follow up, by the way. Really well done.
Me too, and if the surface is the same size as an iPad then the keyboard is not going to be fullsize. If I add the wireless Apple keyboard ontop of the iPad about 2 keys sticks out over the edge if I line it up on the other end.
I love these glimpses of the future. I'm far to visual and need more applications then what's available on iPad now, but I'd love to work like this too.
No, but Munich is a pretty safe and affluent place. Also, what're they going to do? Run away in front of hundreds of witnesses while I video them with my iPhone and call for the (ever-present) police?
I can't understand why ANYONE is still using Linode after their disgraceful behaviour at the start of this year.
For those that don't remember they were hacked and a sizeable sum of Bitcoins were stolen from a number of VPSs after their customer service app was hacked.
The problem is that (a) customers were the last to hear about it having to find out the news from Reddit, (b) we still don't know exactly what happened, (c) we don't know whether it affected other VPS or whether it is still an issue, (d) what they've learnt/changed.
Compare this to Cloudflare which was transparent and open with everyone and clearly learnt a lot of lessons. Trying to hide your mistakes at every turn is NOT how you run a service company.
OK, let's be sensationalist for a moment: I should stop using Google, Dropbox, Microsoft, Apple, Sony, Amazon... They have all been hacked at one point or another and very rarely do we get details of what actually happened. Ohh yea, I should give up my US citizenship as well. I hear about the US gov getting hacked all the time and they don't let us know whats going on either.
People love hating on hosting companies, and touting their own horror or success stories. When will people realize that mistakes are inevitable. To me, one mistake every once in a while is forgivable. Perhaps I could also careless about bitcoins (they seem about as worthless as Second Life money). Linode did mention publicly that only 8 accounts were compromised and no credit card info or passwords were available to them.
Also, while I'm not commenting on Linode's response to the incident, ultimately the security of your information is up to you. The owner of the stolen Bitcoins has publicly stated that he learned a lesson: encrypt your data.
Your server, your data, your information is only as safe as you make it. Even if everything is fully encrypted and all a hacker could do to mess with you is delete your instance, you should have offsite backups of your important stuff. Always assume you're going to lose everything. Whether it's hardware failure, hacking, or a simple mistake, treat a gun like it's loaded.
Encrypt your important data. Use two-factor authentication on privileged accounts. If you want Bitcoins to be a currency, then read up on Payment Card Industry regulations and really understand how to keep a currency secure.Hire an auditor if need be. Everyone is going to be hacked, everyone is going to be embarrassed, and your data is never secure unless you make it secure.
Linode does offer basic two-factor authentication, which was one of the things I mentioned. You have the ability to set up IP address whitelists. If you try to log in from an address not on the whitelist, you get an email to confirm you are who you say you are. If I know the attack correctly, the hacker reset (or otherwise gained) the password via the support console and used that to log in. With two-factor, he could get the right password but would still need access to the email account as well. Unless you've majorly fucked up, there is no way anyone besides you is getting root.
You sign no SLA with Linode. They make no guarantees. That leaves it up to you to make sure you're secure, and fortunately they give you the tools needed to make this a reality.
It doesn't have the ridiculous battery life of an iPad, but other than that it essentially gives you the same portability without feeling like you're constraining yourself to a subpar development environment (I've tried doing serious web dev on an iPad, but the lack of a web inspector and the ability to remap caps lock as control are both dealbreakers for me).