... which is entirely developed on the iPad Pro.
It all started a few weeks ago when I decide to buy an iPad Pro (11 inches). The motivation was not to use it as a development machine. My current role requires to draw some diagrams and to explain stuff a bit more visually. So the iPad Pro seemed to be a nice device for such a purpose.
Being a techie, I wondered a bit which kind of development can be done on it and I started to install some tools for experimenting with them:
- Working Copy: A Git client
- Pythonista: A Python IDE
- StaSh: A shell for Pythonista which allows you to use packages via 'pip'
- Blink: A CLI with an SSH client
- VNC Viewer: Access the screen of your computer (which is running a VNC server)
- Duet: Use your iPad as a second screen for your Mac
It all went a bit "crazy" when I went to my barber to get my beard cut. Now my Turkish barber is a very good one which means that he is very busy (seems this is a pattern across all industries - let it be IT-specialists or barbers). So I had to wait for about 2 hours to get a shave. As I already expected some waiting time, I took my iPad Pro with me (for i.e. reading a book). Holding it in my hands, I was then thinking why not trying to drive this 'How to develop on this device?' idea forward. But which kind of application should I develop? So one of the thoughts was to be able to demonstrate Redis (https://redis.io/) itself on the iPad. Wouldn't it be cool to
- Just connect a small device with a Pen to a big screen (i.e. projector via USB-C, screen sharing)
- Explain some concepts by just drawing like on a whiteboard
- Demonstrate some Redis basics by being connected to a Redis Cloud instance (You can get a 30MB database for free here: https://redislabs.com/redis-enterprise/essentials/)
?
Given the fact that I invested some time to write this article, my opinion is clearly: "Yes, it would be cool!". However, if you are still wondering "Why the hell should I want to develop on an iPad Pro?" then I guess the answer is: "Because you can!" ;-) So this is more a fun project, whereby it might be a good basic example for:
- Understanding some Redis basics
- Using a very popular Redis Python client (https://github.com/andymccurdy/redis-py)
- Understanding some Jinja2 (http://jinja.pocoo.org/docs/2.10/) HTML templating basics
- Learning how to use some Flask basics (http://flask.pocoo.org/) for building a simple web application
So have fun!
The following python packages should be installed:
- redis
- Flask
The application will read the configuration from a file which is called 'config.py'. You will need to create copy the 'config_example.py' file to 'config.py'. Then you can set the following configuration paramters:
- host
- port
- password
Here finally a screenshot of the application which is running in a browser on my iPad:
- App in Safari:
- Pythonista IDE:
