Programming on an iPad

Since breaking my hand I’ve been struggling to find a workflow that really suits me, but one thing that I’ve found extremely helpful is the autocomplete and predictive typing from iOS. It’s been really helpful in quick communications like email, slack, Twitter, etc.. Plus the keyboard is smaller making those weird key combinations easier one handed.

Alas, as a developer I was constantly switching between iMac and iPad. Using the former for all my development needs and then the other for communication. I wanted to combine both and thought about how to do development on an iPad, and unfortunately, there isn’t a lot of options outside of ssh and a private server. Not being a fan of VIM and the likes I couldn’t go that route.

After searching I did come across a rudimentary solution and that is using a screenshare app on the iPad to connect to the iMac. This is only my second days using it like this but it ids working fairly well. I get all my comfortable apps like Sublime, PhpStorm, and Sequel Pro all from the iPad screen.

The app I used is called Screens and the on the iMac I used SwitchResX to bring down the aspect ration of the iMac. Here is what it looks like with phpstorm:

Tomorrow I go for a hard cast so I’m hoping that means I’ll get some use back in my fingers and be able to make typing easier, but until then this is working.