Exploring the advantages and pitfalls of using Apple’s popular tablet for data science work
Just a few years ago (2021), I published a blog post on how I used to be using an iPad for my very own data science work, so I believed I’d share a follow up on condition that, yes, I’m still using an iPad for my very own work here in September 2024. I ended the 2021 post with the next note:
And so we finally come to the query we’ve all been waiting for, and that’s, can we finally use solely the iPad for data science work? The unlucky answer is ultimately no. Because iPadOS isn’t a conventional operating system, there are lots of things I cannot do resulting from my reliance on command line tools, Docker images, and more. I’ll have an interest to see if Apple is ever in a position to overcome these hurdles, but they’re unfortunately still here in January 2021.
At the top of the day, this continues to be unfortunately true. Apple’s iPadOS operating system still inhibits the iPad from being as versatile as computers leveraging other operating systems like Windows, macOS, or Linux.
Still, the iPad has experienced plenty of updates since my original post, each when it comes to iPadOS itself in addition to other software services that could be supported on the iPad. Interestingly, much of the content from that…
