I would love it if Apple allowed us to run Big Sur on the iPad, if I could use one as a more real computer I definitely would. Probably would cannibalize a lot of Mac sales though.
Having them later in the presentation say "Hey look at all these ARM containers running on Apple chips on macOS" was an especial kick in the teeth.
I used my potato-tier iPad with a Logic Folio as my main computer for a couple of months while my MacBook was getting replaced and it was honestly a vastly better experience for me save for not being able to get work done because of the absence of spinning up a Linux workspace.
Even if they artificially limited it to iPad Pro (it's Apple after all) I'd still be happy.
I can't imagine it's still impossible for them to add similar functionality if it's the only thing holding it back from running macOS.
iPads work with standard mice, and have an on-screen mouse pointer. I used mine with an old mouse I had lying around a couple of weeks ago. Works fine.
Some people have said ARM EL2, but virtualization in hardware isn't required if we can get a terminal with a jailed environment (akin to chroot) with brew. At worst you could spin up a Linux kernel in userspace if you needed to.
It forces emulation of x86. If only it could cut QEMU out of the equation it would be perfect.
They can make something work if Swift Playgrounds works (which is a pretty silly experience anyway. “Hey kid, great job learning Swift. Want to make a real app? Buy a $1200 MacBook and get to work!”
I’ve always found that strange given the demographic of HN. I’ve never considered good tools to be expensive. Continuous lost productivity is usually more costly than “Apple Tax”.
On iPhone and iPad, apps are terminated when the memory is scarce so all the apps are build to expect that to happen.
What I would expect to happen is Mac OS constantly complaining that you are out of memory and you need to choose one of the following apps to terminate.
Sure, a lot of swap can be used but this would degrade the performance significantly IMHO.