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0 pointsyamtaddle3y ago0 comments

> a) Apple restricts iPad OS so much, that it's difficult to make good use of that fantastic hardware. It feels weird that people ask questions like "what can I actually use that power for?"

Really, I can't think of a ton of uses for desktop/laptop hardware this powerful. And I don't do any of them, gaming aside (I have a mediocre Windows PC for that, and even that is often using only a fraction of its power for gaming).

The one and only time I've given my m1 Air a real workout is playing with one of those AI art generators, but it's not like that was something I needed to do, or I'd have felt like I was really missing out if I hadn't done it. I did it because I could and it was low-effort.

Faster compiling is nice I guess. That's... it.

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jwr3y ago

> Really, I can't think of a ton of uses for desktop/laptop hardware this powerful.

Oh, there are plenty — for one, I would really like to have a good CAD/CAM application. Parametric, history-based, like Fusion 360 or SolidWorks. There is Shapr3D which is absolutely amazing and shows what the hardware is capable of (take a look at the demo videos), but nothing I can use for actual work.

These kinds of apps need both a reasonable GPU for rendering and a really good CPU for computing constraints in sketches, and then for recomputing solids.

Unfortunately, Fusion 360 being an Autodesk product, we aren't even graced with an Apple Silicon version on the Mac yet, even though it's been what, two years since Apple Silicon is out? The application is a slow pig, where usability comes last. So I guess I can keep on dreaming.

Or take electronics CAD — having KiCAD on an iPad would be amazing.

yamtaddleOP3y ago

Yeah, not a ton, I didn't write none. 3D modeling, cad, running scientific models. Gaming. Hi-res video editing workflows. Machine learning. I guess "crypto" junk. And some of that (machine learning, crypto, probably most compute-intensive scientific models) aren't something you probably want to do on a tablet or laptop except in a pinch, anyway, because a purpose-built server's much better-suited to it and you probably don't need continuous and detailed visual feedback.

But I don't think it's weird that people struggle to come up with ways to really use super-powerful hardware, because most folks don't do (and don't want to do) much of the above except maybe gaming, and most people who do game don't do it—or at least not in a way that's taxing on the hardware—on all the kinds of devices they own.

The cool stuff lots and lots of people actually use tends to end up in dedicated hardware or paths, like video codecs and image processing and face recognition and all that, not mainly processed by the general CPU or graphics power of their platforms.

smoldesu3y ago

Most folks don't do complicated video editing or music production, that doesn't stop Apple from optimizing their hardware around that, too. The problem isn't a lack of demand, but rather the inverse - there's so much demand for new software, that Apple can make tens-of-billions of dollars just off the app distribution platform alone.

The crux of all this is having the option to run the software you want on the hardware you own. No, I don't do 3D modelling, CAD, scientific simulation or gaming on a daily basis. But I do use that software sometimes, and a device that excludes the possibility of running any of them doesn't sound fun or "limitless" to me. It all leads to the feeling that the iPad is a Disney-fied version of a professional workflow.

cassianoleal3y ago

There is Onshape for parametric mechanical CAD.

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