The Problem With "Coding on iPad"
Every year, Apple makes the iPad more powerful. The M-series chips. The Liquid Retina XDR display. The Magic Keyboard. And every year, developers ask the same question: can I actually code on this thing?
The answer has always been "sort of." You can use VS Code in a browser through GitHub Codespaces. You can SSH into a server with Blink Shell. You can use apps like Swift Playgrounds for basic experiments. But the moment you need the real tools — Xcode, Android Studio, Visual Studio, a proper terminal with your dotfiles — you're stuck.
These aren't arbitrary limitations. Apple doesn't allow full IDEs on iPadOS. Xcode will never run natively on an iPad (at least not the full version). And browser-based editors, no matter how good they get, are fundamentally limited by what a browser tab can do.
So I tried a different approach. Instead of bringing the IDE to the iPad, I brought the iPad to the IDE.
The Setup: Remio + Mac mini + iPad Pro
My setup is almost embarrassingly simple:
- Mac mini M4 — sitting at home, always on, running Xcode and all my dev tools
- iPad Pro 13" — with Magic Keyboard and Apple Pencil, wherever I am
- Remio — connecting the two, with zero configuration
I open Remio on my iPad, type in the PIN shown on my Mac mini, and within two seconds I'm looking at my Mac desktop. Full resolution. Full color. With my entire development environment exactly where I left it.
No VPN to configure. No SSH tunnels to maintain. No account to create. Just a PIN and a connection.
Why This Is Better Than Browser-Based Coding
I've used all the alternatives. Seriously, all of them. Here's why Remio with a real Mac beats every browser-based solution I've tried:
GitHub Codespaces / VS Code Web
Codespaces is genuinely impressive for web development. But it runs in a Linux container. No Xcode. No Interface Builder. No iOS Simulator. No Core Data model editor. If you're building iOS or macOS apps, it's simply not an option. And even for web development, you're limited by browser sandboxing — no local file access, no native terminal, no ability to run arbitrary background processes.
SSH + Terminal Editors
I love Vim. I really do. But building a SwiftUI app with 47 files, xibs, asset catalogs, and a Core Data model in a terminal editor is not productivity — it's masochism. IDE features like code completion, refactoring, live previews, and the visual debugger exist for a reason.
Cloud Desktops (AWS WorkSpaces, Shadow PC)
You can rent a Mac in the cloud for about $50-100/month. But you already own a Mac. Why are you paying to rent a worse one? With Remio, you use your actual machine — with your actual files, your actual toolchain, your actual environment. And the latency is better because your Mac is on your home network, not in a data center in Virginia.
A Day of Real Work
Let me walk you through what an actual workday looks like.
8:30 AM — I sit down at a café with my iPad and Magic Keyboard. Open Remio. Connect to my Mac mini at home. Xcode is already open with my project from last night.
8:35 AM — I'm writing SwiftUI code. Code completion works perfectly because it's real Xcode running on a real Mac with a real Swift compiler. Every keystroke feels instant — Remio's native input handling means there's no perceptible delay between pressing a key and seeing the character appear.
9:15 AM — I need to test on the iOS Simulator. I hit ⌘R. The Simulator launches on my Mac, and I see it on my iPad screen. I can interact with the simulated iPhone using touch gestures on my iPad — which is surprisingly natural. Tap, swipe, scroll. It just works.
10:00 AM — Time for some UI work. I open Interface Builder. Dragging constraints, adjusting layouts, previewing on different device sizes. This is exactly the kind of work that's impossible in a browser-based editor. The visual tools are irreplaceable.
11:30 AM — I'm debugging a tricky concurrency issue. I set breakpoints, step through code, inspect variables in the debugger. LLDB works perfectly because I'm using the real thing, not a web-based approximation.
1:00 PM — After lunch, I switch to my Android project. I close Xcode and open Android Studio. Same connection, same setup. Remio doesn't care what app I'm running — it streams the entire desktop.
By the end of the day, I've written about 400 lines of Swift, fixed three bugs, submitted a build to TestFlight, and reviewed two pull requests. All from an iPad at a café. None of this required any special configuration or compromise.
The Details That Make It Work
Keyboard Shortcuts
This is where most remote desktop apps fall apart. Remio forwards every keyboard shortcut correctly. ⌘B to build. ⌘R to run. ⌘⇧O to open quickly. ⌃⌘Space for emoji (yes, even that). The Magic Keyboard's modifier keys map 1:1 to the Mac's modifier keys. There's no translation layer, no key remapping confusion.
Text Rendering
Code is small text. Lots of it. A remote desktop app that blurs text or introduces artifacts is completely unusable for development. Remio's H.265 encoding with text-optimized settings keeps code razor-sharp. Syntax highlighting colors are accurate. Font weights are correct. At the iPad Pro's resolution, it genuinely looks like Xcode is running locally.
Multi-Monitor
On my Mac mini, I have a virtual second display. Remio lets me switch between displays or view both side-by-side. I keep my code on one screen and the Simulator on the other. On the iPad, I can swipe between them or use Stage Manager to keep both visible.
File Transfer
Need to pull a screenshot from the Simulator to annotate on the iPad? Remio supports clipboard sync — copy an image on your Mac, paste it on your iPad. It's seamless for transferring code snippets, screenshots, and small files between the two devices.
My Workflow Tips
After six months of coding this way, I've developed some habits that make the experience even better:
- Keep your Mac on a wired connection. My Mac mini is plugged into the router via Ethernet. This eliminates the biggest variable in streaming quality.
- Use a stable Wi-Fi connection for the iPad. 5GHz Wi-Fi at a café is usually fine. If the connection is flaky, Remio's adaptive quality adjusts automatically — but a stable connection means consistently sharp text.
- Set Xcode's font size to 13-14pt. This is comfortably readable on the iPad Pro's display through Remio without needing to zoom.
- Use keyboard shortcuts for everything. The less you use touch/mouse for IDE operations, the faster you'll be. This is good advice for local development too.
- Enable "Reduce Motion" in iPadOS settings. This slightly reduces the animation overhead on the iPad side, giving Remio a hair more performance headroom.
What I Can't Do (Honestly)
In the interest of being completely honest, here are the limitations:
- You need internet. If you're on a plane without Wi-Fi, this doesn't work. (Though I've used it successfully on in-flight Wi-Fi — it was slow but functional.)
- Your Mac needs to stay on. This isn't a cloud service. If someone unplugs your Mac or it restarts for an update, you lose your connection until it's back.
- Extremely latency-sensitive tasks — like gaming or real-time audio production — have a noticeable (if small) delay. For coding? The latency is imperceptible.
Those tradeoffs are real. But for me, they're vastly outweighed by the ability to carry my entire development environment in a 700-gram tablet.
The iPad Developer Dream, Realized
For years, I waited for Apple to bring Xcode to the iPad. At some point, I realized it might never happen — at least not the full, professional version. So I stopped waiting and found a better answer.
Remio doesn't put Xcode on your iPad. It puts your entire Mac on your iPad. Every app, every tool, every file. With the display quality and input responsiveness that makes it feel like the Mac is right in front of you — because, in every way that matters, it is.
"The best development setup isn't the one with the most horsepower. It's the one you actually have with you."
My iPad Pro with Remio is the best development machine I've ever owned — not because of its specs, but because it goes everywhere I do, and my full dev environment comes with it.
If you're a developer with a Mac and an iPad, give Remio a try. Setup takes two minutes. No account required. And if you're curious about the gaming side, check out our guide on playing PC games on your iPad — the same low-latency tech that makes coding work also makes gaming incredible.