How long before MacOS and iPadOS have enough feature parity that they get merged?
The divergence between macOS and ipadOS is not technical, it's that Apple believes a touch-oriented and a pointer-oriented interface are completely different things.
Edit: Also the fact that MacOS has been changing the UI to make it more touch friendly, for example: new control center.
I think eventually macOS will be too.
It's not a large stretch to see some overlap between allowing macOS features on a large screen mobile device.
It is in fact a rather large stretch. macOS allowing the larger targets of iPad applications is a rather different proposition than macOS's rather small targets being on touch devices.
Yes, but it does not mandate a pointer.
> the preferred way to do pointer interactions on macOS seems to be touchpads (not mice), so the gap is definitely not as large anymore.
A touchpad is a pointer device with a similar level of precision and interaction as a mouse. One completely unlike touch.
The main difference is if you aim by using a pointer on the screen or if you aim by touching what you want to interact with. Some things like gestures are basically the same (or could be).
Yes. That is not a small difference. That is, in fact, a huge difference.
The buttons on my phone are physically larger than those on my laptop's screen, yet they are significantly harder to hit reliably. Manipulating text remains a chore on touch device, except when those touch devices provide a pointer erzats (of which Apple removed a large part of the convenience when they broke selection support with the deprecation of 3D touch).
The only way to put software on the iPad is through Apple's app store, which is a hill they seem awfully willing to die on. It's possible they give that up for the iPad but hold onto the iPhone, but that would weaken the PR value of their security argument.
I've worked a full week away from an office using only VNC even before Apple added mouse support. It's fine. Touch-oriented vs Mouse-oriented is an odd philosophy to hold when it's used to oppose a workflow being somewhat supported vs not at at all.
Touch and Pointer are different in emphasis not user intent. User Intent can span across device classes for different contexts -- i.e. jotting notes in a long form document in a meeting vs. at your laptop in private, all revolve around making progress on a text based deliverable.
Before recent MacCatalyst developments, the UI libraries were on different continents with CC and UIKit. Now, the major differences are design limited, not API limited.
UIMenuBuilder and UIHoverGestureRecognizer tells you most everything you need to know about how Apple is viewing the touch vs. pointer environment.
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uimenubuilde...
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uihovergestu...
Really interested to hear Apple’s excuse not allowing to run MacOS on M1 iPad pro with an external monitor and keyboard. The standard "optimized for different use case" argument doesn't make that much sense with that setup.
Sharing the same OS never precluded people having both an iphone and an ipad.
Macbook Air with the same RAM/storage is about $1,600.
If you want to compete, you need a $350 keyboard for the ipad which makes it a full $550 more expensive.
As to tradeoffs, you get a better conferencing camera and touch on the ipad, but you get a better trackpad and two thunderbolt ports on the macbook.