The allure of the iPad is that it's not macOS. It opens instantly, apps can't screw the system up ever (at worst you delete the app and re-install it), everything is neatly sandboxed, the UI is optimized for touch, etc.<p>And iPad with macOS would be unusable as a tablet with regular mac apps (macOS requires more precision control and has smaller targets), and at best would be a way to get a Mac to hook to a monitor and use with a mouse and keyboard. But you can already get a Mini for half the price, or an Air that also comes with a keyboard. So what exactly do you gain? Especially if they also come up with a M1 Macbook (no Air/Pro, the small version).<p>What Apple could do however, is further improve iPad OS multitasking and windowing use to make it better for multi-app workflows.<p>Already basic multitasking, window-tiling, drag and drop, and file Finder support, and USB-C have improved it dramatically for such purposes.<p>That said, Final Cut Pro, Logic, XCode and a Terminal would be nice additions...
While I'm one of the people that wants macOS on iPadOS, the sentiment that "maybe Apple doesn't realize there's a market for macOS in an iPad form factor" is silly.<p>The iPad is a play for innovators dilemma-style disruption from the bottom, and that possibility diminishes if you allow macOS on iPads. The reason the full Photoshop can't run on iPadOS is because iOS doesn't allow that kind of software to run. It only allows "democratized" software (the bottom) that's easy to run, install, and uninstall, and won't interfere with battery, etc... It's a different software model than we use on macOS. It's better on some ways, but it's clearly worse in others. Apple is still betting that there's value in this alternative software model, and it's so consistent with Apple's modus operandi of control, that I'm willing to bet they'll take this battle to their grave (you'll never get an unlocked iPad, ever).<p>I think a more fruitful approach with Apple is pushing them to innovate more with macOS and the Mac. Tell them to make more exciting hardware, stop having their laptops designed by the industrial-engineering B-team. Stop porting iOS-paradigm OS features that don't make sense on the Mac. Instead create more real innovative desktop-class features like Exposé. You can also keep promoting this iPadOS thing at the same time. But sorry Apple, you're <i>never</i> going to transition the content creators to iPadOS. It's just not going to happen ever because the computing model just doesn't work for that kind of work. The best bet is to get back to working hard on the Mac and macOS.
No, don't.<p>The intent of the device is different and the primary method of input is different. Adding a touch control to a predominately pointer-based UI is an awful experience. Using the iPad as a Sidecar display is nice for when you need the pencil but using it as a touchscreen is pretty awful. It really shows that macOS shouldn't be accessed via that method.<p>Rather, Apple should take a big leap forward with iPadOS 15 and allow more powerful apps to run on it, such as Xcode et al. Sure, it opens up the ecosystem a little and lowers the walls of the garden, _for iPadOS_, but it keeps the same best-in-class experience as iOS while bringing the power of macOS "pro" apps.
As a happy owner of a Surface Pro, I tend to agree. Being able to have both a powerful laptop and a reading and media consumption device in one is great. While the iPad is a better tablet and (certainly the M1 powered) Macbook is arguably a better laptop, I still stay with the Surface.<p>With Microsoft's nice recent improvements to WSL2 (GUI apps!), the development experience is mostly on par or even better than on MacOS, certainly if you workflows are mostly Linux based anyways.<p>I find Windows is doing an ok job bridging between the touch and pointer worlds, so it's certainly not impossible for Apple to follow along.
After thinking about this for a while, I think they've been making the right move.<p>However, I'd like to see:<p><pre><code> - Xcode, Final Cut Pro, and other pro apps with full feature-sets designed specifically for iPad (touch, mouse, and keyboard)
- A new keyboard accessory more like a laptop with a strong base like a Surface Book 3
- A revamped Terminal.app for Mac and iPad with rendering perf improvements like in iTerm2, Alacritty, and Kitty
- Virtualization support, or at least something that somehow runs Linux containers
- Advanced tiling window management... maybe only via keyboard shortcuts
- Ability to script iPad OS behavior - window management and keyboard remapping
- Ability to run unsigned CLI and GUI apps from inside a terminal and/or launched via other iOS apps like would be used in iOS Xcode
</code></pre>
Bonus: Unlockable bootloader to run alternative OS's like M1 Macs can.<p>If they did all of these I'd strongly consider buying one as my primary device.
Imagine if iPadOS turned into macOS when you plugged in a keyboard and mouse, then back into iPadOS when unplugged. That would be awesome!<p>To the naysayers: Is the intent of a display different than that of another display? What could possibly be wrong with treating an iPad as just a display??<p>Isn't that the holy grail? A mobile device that becomes a full PC when you sit at a desk.
While the Magic keyboard provides a viable keyboard and mouse setup for the iPad, I would much rather see macOS-style features made available on the iPad - particularly a Unix shell and the standard tools which go with that.
The iPad is not a Mac. If you want macOS, get a Mac.<p>iPadOS is much more user friendly to people who are not IT professionals. I’ve been moving less technically inclined family members to the iPad for this reason exactly.<p>Having a full macOS on there would ruin that. Mac apps are not built for touch. The user experience of such a thing would be awful, and redesigning macOS to work on tablets would make it worse for Mac-users.<p>So no, putting macOS on would not be brave. It would be dumb.
If nothing else I would like a reverse-Catalyst for bringing AppKit apps to the iPad, even if it’s a program that has to be applied for. I want Sketch and XCode on the iPad.<p>Especially for XCode, the iPad can already compile Swift code in the Swift Playgrounds app, so it’s technically feasible. Swift Playgrounds itself is just rough and buggy, at least last time I checked. (E.g. ARC reference counts don’t work how you would think because the playground seems to keep its own reference to your objects so objects don’t always deinitialize when they should. This is NOT a problem in XCode playgrounds in the Mac. I haven’t check Swift Playgrounds (a Catalyst port of the iPad app) on the Mac).
We should see some changes to iPad OS come WWDC on June 7th. Maybe nothing amazing, but here's hoping.<p>Meanwhile you can order an iPad next week with the same CPU (presumably clocked lower), GPU, memory and storage as the iMac also announced on Tuesday.
Had exactly the same reaction when I saw M1 in an ipad. What a missed opportunity to convert new people to MacOS with an incredible device. I would have skipped a surface for this. Dual booting would be nirvana but won’t happen as it would cannibalize their market. This looks like Porsche releasing a new car with an awesome engine, good looks, tons of drooling specs but you can’t drive it faster than 70mph. Shame but We’re probably not the intended target. Imagine how many surface sales this would have nuked though.
(Forgive me if this sounds really dumb, I'm running on surface-level knowledge from doing a similar thing on Android a few years ago)<p>Would it be possible to grab a filesystem from a arm64 installation of macOS and chroot into it from a jailbroken iPad, or are there too many kernel level differences to make that impossible (without breaking stuff)? chroot is shipped with macOS, so you should be able to do it from macOS->macOS.
I agree. I would love to have the iPad Pro hardware with macOS running on it. iPad OS is just far too restrictive with mulit-tasking, referring to multiple apps/windows at once and text selection/copy/paste - don't get me started. If you have the trackpad on the magic keyboard that would probably solve my issues with text selection; but the other core problems with iPad OS would still remain.
WWDC 2021 fortune teller, Catalist keeps improving, bringing even more iOS to macOS.<p>Yet another set of Swift/Objective-C APIs get introduced without equivalent capabilities on POSIX.
I’d settle for being able to change text size in iOS browsers per tab instead of it being a full-system change...you know, like how ALL desktop browsers work.
i am afraid the the reverse might be true, it's not that apple is afraid to put macos on the ipad, but that they would rather put ios on laptops.<p>ios is way more locked down than macos is, and that's what apple really wants: more control. not less.<p>so if they dared, they would do just the opposite of what the article is asking.<p>android on laptops exists, and i believe chromebooks are similarly limited (i never used one, so i can't tell)
and obliterate an entire product line?<p>too many people have been saying "I will stop buying Macbooks once the iPad runs macOS" too loudly for that to be a reality anymore :(