+++ date = 2024-07-11T20:24:02 title = "Emacs on iPadOS" description = "Learn how to install and use Emacs on the Apple Silicon iPad natively." draft = true +++ This post describes the process to install and use Emacs on the iPad Air 13-inch (M2). The iPad used in this post is running iPadOS 17.6. ## Shell Application In order to use Emacs on an iPad, you will need a terminal emulator application. I recommend [iSH](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ish-shell/id1436902243), since it runs a version of Alpine Linux within the app itself and will allow you to install packages that you need. ![iSH App](https://img.cleberg.net/blog/20240711-emacs-on-ipad/) ## Require Packages I started by adding the required packages directly within iSH. Emacs should install dependencies by default, but I include a few other packages that I use in my terminal as well. ```sh apk add emacs ripgrep fd findutils ``` ![Package Installation](https://img.cleberg.net/blog/20240711-emacs-on-ipad/) ## Emacs Once this is complete, you should be able to run Emacs natively on your iPad. It's fairly effective, but can be slow at times. I attempted to also install Doom Emacs, which technically worked, but was so incredibly slow and buggy that I was not even able to take screenshots. Someone smarter than me could likely get it to work with a little tinkering. ![Emacs](https://img.cleberg.net/blog/20240711-emacs-on-ipad/) ### Annoyances While Emacs is running at this point, it's not perfect. There is no `.emacs` file by default, installing a framework like Doom seemed to be too much, and some utilities and packages are missing from the bare Alpine installation. There also seems to be a problem getting a wider selection of packages from MELPA, but you can see below that a handful of readily-available packages. I likely just need to change my configuration for MELPA, but I did not explore this area further. You can test this out yourself with `M-x package-install `. ![package-install](https://img.cleberg.net/blog/20240711-emacs-on-ipad/)