There’s been a lot of talk on the internet over the last couple of weeks from people who were planning on buying a new Macbook Pro who have instead decided to move most (or all) of their workflow over to some sort of tablet (usually an iPad Pro). While I’m not quite there yet, I do find myself using my computer less and my iPad more, and I thought it was worth exploring exactly what it is that would stop me making this sort of switch.
As far as I can work out, the things I still need a computer for are downloading and managing music, ripping/converting CDs/DVDs, converting markdown into .docx (and possibly some other formats, although I have solutions for html and pdf now), and web development/Wordpress work.
Of these, the first one requires macOS/Windows because of the integration with iOS (and only because of that). I don’t want to stop using my iPhone/iPad though, and I buy new music very regularly, and want to be able to listen to it on the move.
The second one can be done on any computer that can be connected to a USB CD drive (which I already own), will run handbrake and that has enough storage space. I probably wouldn’t try this on a Raspberry Pi, but anything else would work.
The third one I can do on anything that can run Pandoc, so any computer that can handle the first two tasks will handle the third.
The fourth one I can do on any Mac/Linux computer. I already have a Linux solution working, and could even use a Raspberry Pi at a push (I’ve already set up a basic environment on a Pi II).
That’s actually not a lot. All my writing, blogging and social media works fine (in some cases better) on my iPad, and Microsoft Office also works well (and integrates nicely with both Sharepoint and Dropbox).
Right now my two most utilised computers are the iPad and the Pi that I use for watching TV shows. Nothing else comes close, and my desktop computers only really get any sort of serious use during weekends/holidays. Maybe there is more milage in this than I thought.