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Before you go and buy an iPad for software development, you should definitely watch this video
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A while back I bought an iPad Pro and in this video I will share you how I use it on a day-to-day
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basis as a front-end software developer. And a question I get asked all the time is if you should get an iPad instead of a laptop
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as a computer science student or if you're just trying to learn how to code. So let's talk about that too
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You've probably noticed that YouTube and other websites or apps look different on a laptop
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than they do on an iPad or phone. This is intentional to make a site that is easy to use
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It's something you have to consider and implement when building the application. It just doesn't happen on its own
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Applications need to respond correctly to different sizes of screens, which is why we
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call it responsive design. In Chrome DevTools, you can simulate different screen sizes, which helps to make development
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faster and easier, but it's not perfect and you still have to deal with differences across browsers
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If you're working on a project that requires a responsive design, having iPads and phones
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for testing is helpful. This is probably the number one reason why an iPad is helpful as a web developer
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But back when I worked on hybrid applications, it was mandatory because to build hybrid apps
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you use a JavaScript framework to build a single application that can be deployed to
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both Android and iOS devices. It's not a perfect replacement for native applications, but these types of apps can
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be useful. These are actual applications, so they have to be installed on the device, which meant
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that I ended up having to have several different devices from different manufacturers with
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different screen sizes just for testing. But when it comes to testing personal projects, you're probably going to be fine with just
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your phone and a laptop, unless you're actually targeting iPad users, then you're
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probably going to be fine to get by with just a single iPad. A lot of times as a front-end developer, I end up having to sketch out or wireframe application
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pages or components, and most times I end up just using a notebook for this
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But if I do plan to share it, then I'll end up using an iPad. It's also helpful when doing some design work or for creating SVGs, but honestly, this
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isn't something that I'm doing all the time, so it's not an absolute necessity
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I mean, I created the logo for this channel myself, but at work there are dedicated designers
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who end up making company-approved SVG icons as well as high-fidelity mock-ups
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It's also nice to be able to mark up documents on an iPad using the Apple Pencil instead
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of a mouse because it just looks a lot more natural, and you're able to easily pass them
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back and forth between the iPad and a MacBook Pro. I'm also in somewhat of a unique situation because I make these videos, and so when I'm
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trying out different coding apps on my iPad, I'll use the screen recording feature to capture
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what I'm doing so that I can then AirDrop it into my MacBook for video editing
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Some people like to take notes on their iPads, and I thought I'd be more efficient that way
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but turns out I was wrong. I took my iPad to several JavaScript conferences and never even pulled it out
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I'm just a no-good, dirty, tree-wasting paper kind of guy. Or I will use my laptop to take notes when I can do that and put it directly into tickets
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The main text-related tasks that I do on my iPad is through the Notion app
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I use Notion to manage video ideas from my phone, and then I'll write outlines for these
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videos and they sync across all my devices so that I can just pull them up on my iPad
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and use those notes when I'm making these videos. But what about code
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Is it okay to get an iPad for coding instead of a laptop? You could do that for some languages and projects only because they're something that just won't
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work well on an iPad. But there are plenty of applications if you're learning the code that are geared towards
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new programmers to help you learn the different concepts. And I'll be doing a video on some of those soon, so subscribe if you want to find out
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when that comes out. For actual coding, I just don't think it's worth it to get an iPad
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If you have other reasons to get an iPad, then that's great. You might consider getting a cheaper laptop and a mid-tier iPad if you're on a budget
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but I definitely wouldn't recommend going down the solo iPad route for coding
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When it comes to actually writing code on an iPad, I only do that when I'm experimenting
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or trying out a new application. I don't use an iPad for any kind of serious software development outside of testing, period
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And there are a lot of reasons why, and I already went into that in a previous video
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so you can watch that one next. Or if you really want to code on an iPad, I already have a video on the best way to
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do that too. And I'll leave the links in the description because if you're on a phone, the responsive
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design may be hiding those features from you. Lates
