Still can't believe the M2 chip is hobbled with Stage Manager.

Dear Apple,

I want my iPad to become a Finder based full-fat macOS when it's on the Magic Keyboard and I want it to be Springboard when I take it off the Magic Keyboard.

Make it happen already.

Yeah, I don't really know who Apple is hoping to sell these to. My ex-boyfriend bought one of the earlier iPad Pros with some grand ambitions, but he mostly ended up using it for Netflix, Twitter and emails. I think that totally legitimizes the existence of the smaller/cheaper models, but who is Apple selling these to in the long-term? Even the mediocre Surface Pro has a decent software experience that explains why someone might continue spending extra on it. But I don't know who the iPad Pro is for, especially these souped-up models. 120hz is nice, but... who the hell is going to need or even appreciate a high-refresh rate on an iPad? I reckon most "pros" would be happier if they sacked the high refresh and upgraded the panel to a 60hz OLED one.

I'm just spitballing though. The iPad probably won't make sense for most of us until it's discontinued or they add macOS to it, whichever comes first.

I bought a 2G ipad pro and it was very useful as just a writing tablet. Unlimited paper, though I had to get a paper-like screen protector since otherwise their wasn't enough friction between the screen and the pen to make me happy.

I'm disappointed there aren't more pen-based programming experiences out there, but I can't really think of any useful ones myself either.

For writing, have you checked out the remarkable? ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24295443 )

It's an e-ink display with paper like friction and if you really want to, you can shell into the linux system it runs on.

I’m not the op, but I am a “pen based note taking enthusiast“.

I have owned both a gen 1 remarkable, and an older iPad Pro. In my opinion, the remarkable is garbage in comparison. The note taking app is just so far behind. And cross platform seems it’s never going to happen.

My note taking app of choice is always: write, by stylus labs. It’s wonderful, and really expresses what I hoped pen based writing would always be. Especially the undo-wheel. For quickly scrolling back a whole word or sentence. But the real killer here is that it’s cross platform. I can move the notes to the native Linux app or the native windows app.

That having been said, I am forever annoyed that I can’t run Xcode on either Linux or my $1000+ iPad. Also, on the iPad, there are ridiculous restrictions in how you are allowed to run apps side by side in split screen.

/sigh

So the race for the good pen note taking device is still on for me.

I have hope that soon the Pine Note will take off and allow me to finally run write by stylus labs on a platform with development tools. In this case Linux.

Again, Apple could win me back by opening access to dev tools. Either in the iPad itself or cross platform on Linux/windows—or by allowing me to install macOS on the iPad.

Remarkable could win me back by opening the platform and allowing my to install write by stylus labs.

Dell or Lenovo could win the race by shipping a 2-in-1 with a current generation processor and Linux officially supported, and preferably pre installed.

But it honestly looks like pine 64 is out in front in this race.

It's linux under the cover that you can connect to if you know the password (in the settings).

There's a whole bunch of apps that you can side load into it.

https://github.com/reHackable/awesome-reMarkable

I'm not sure there's anything preventing you from installing write by stylus labs other than that no one appears to have ported it to the device.