I am an artist and loving using my iPad Pro, so I didn't have any doubt about its usefulness.
I'm kind of astonished realizing that most people think "Apple has struggled to craft a cohesive, compelling narrative for the iPad".
I'm kind of astonished realizing that most people think "Apple has struggled to craft a cohesive, compelling narrative for the iPad".
My iPad Pro (12.9in) does iPad stuff great, and my 13 inch MacBook Air does MacBook stuff great.
But they both have roughly the same processor, power and form factor (once a keyboard is added). The only meaningful differences are that the iPad can undock from the keyboard, the iPad supports Pencil and the OS is different.
OSX running on iPad with the same processor as the Air would actually be great, considering the magic keyboard is so good.
If I could instantly change between OS's I wouldn't need to lug around both devices. Better still, if the OS could be designed to support both modes in an integrated way, it would knock everything else out of the water even more.
This matters because the iPad electronics have to fit behind the screen, while the MacBook electronics live under the keyboard.
To make a PadMac the entire Mac electronics would have to fit behind a thicker unclippable screen, and the keyboard would have to be slimmed down to compensate.
Or perhaps the screen would be accessible over WiFi or even Bluetooth - but that would also affect the power budget and would have other issues. (Is a removable screen as useful as an iPad? Mostly, no.)
Building reliable clip/unclip connections would be an interesting problem.
It could probably be done, and I would be surprised if it hasn't already been tried.
But it's certainly not a trivial engineering challenge, especially given power and cost constraints.
There is very little difference in hardware:
* RAM - 6GB (iPad) vs 8GB base (MacBook Air), although memory chips are tiny and Android phones have 12gb, so I do not see there being a significant limit here.
* Processor - Approximately the same (M1 is basically the A14).
* Connectivity - Both have WiFi only as base, iPad offers 4G.
* Disk size - 128 GB base with options up to 1TB (iPad) vs 256 gb Base with options up to 1 TB (MacBook Air)
* Battery - 10,000 mAh (iPad Pro), and I cannot find the battery of the latest Mac Air but previous models have had 5,500 mah.
So we aren't talking huge differences in spec. In fact it seems that the iPad can fit more in - probably because it doesn't need to include a keyboard which undoubtedly is responsible for a lot of the thickness.
> Building reliable clip/unclip connections would be an interesting problem.
Apple has already solved this for iPad - the Magic Keyboard is brilliant (although not cheap!). Additionally an iPad + Magic Keyboard is actually somewhat thicker than a Macbook pro, which highlights why the Macbook Air is probably thicker than the base iPad (rather than spec).
It really doesn't work for my use case; admittedly my model is probably older. But when I use a laptop, especially when traveling, I grab it and move it around the room, work on my lap, etc. Unless a removable keyboard and screen are attached in a way that is virtually indistinguishable from a laptop, I'm not really interested.
That might be one of the older 'smart keyboards' which didn't really work unless you were on a flat table, and the keys weren't brilliant
The new magic keyboard is much more self-supporting like a laptop - the only thing that makes it unsuitable sometimes is that it's quite top heavy, despite the base itself being pretty heavy to act as a counterweight.
The design of the new iPad has a "floating" arm just to try and move the centre of gravity forward from the base, as a traditional laptop hinge won't really work with the weight on top.
Each to their own. It works better for me personally, because usually if I’m in a position where the keyboard isn’t suitable, it’s better to rip the iPad out of the keyboard and use it as a tablet. It’s held on with magnets so it’s pretty satisfying to rip it off anyway
Why would they cannibalize their own products while they face no competition in the tablet market?
Because if you have a better product that nobody can compete with you can raise your margin and solidify/expand your market position.
You are describing a strategy that normally leads to long term market loss - "Why should we stream movies to the TV? That would only be cannibalising our excellent DVD rental business".
That's not the same thing. Your example is leaving aside an entire new market to protect an existing one. That would be shortsighted.
Here however there is no new market which Apple is missing. Pushing the iPad, a revenue leader in the high-end tablet segment, towards the Macbook Air, a revenue leader in the high-end ultraportable segment, would only make them compete. Unless you need to prevent a competitor from making inroad in one of these markets, that's just losing revenue.
As long as the iPad Pro seems to be a suffisent answer to the Surface line, Apple really has little reason to go further.
The new market is the combined tablet/laptop market, and you are leaving it aside to protect your existing separate tablet/laptop businesses with an inferior product to maintain sales.
Businesses can either protect their existing products that are "good enough", or they can be consumer-centric and keep pushing forwards to create the best products. The second strategy will usually beat the first in the long term.
A friend reminded me only a very small percentage of people in the world are programmers. It’s easy to forget that when almost everyone I work with daily is a programmer. The iPad is amazing in many ways, some of which are not meaningful or visible to people immersed in software development.
But from my (and only my) perspective, computers are relatively cheap enough that I don't mind having a number of them optimized for different tasks--one of which is an iPad for mostly consumption mostly for when I'm traveling.
I like to have one in the studio as well, as an oscilloscope, sequencer, to control my mix while not in front of the computer, as a software synthesizer and on and on and on.
But even graver are the consequences for first time computer users. When I grew up, I learned computing with machines which would have at least a basic when delivered. I had the ability to do programming and understand what a "computer" is. Children, which today grow up with iPads are actively prevented of having that great learning experience. The Apple ad "What is a computer?" on the one side is brilliant marketing, on the other side is outright scary.
Can I develop freely full screen applications with the Swift playground? Can I share the results with my friends?
Edit: a person with no specified gender