Put macOS on the iPad, You Cowards | Hacker News Reader

Put macOS on the iPad, You Cowards

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59 pointspaulpan51 comments

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.

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).

What Apple could do however, is further improve iPad OS multitasking and windowing use to make it better for multi-app workflows.

Already basic multitasking, window-tiling, drag and drop, and file Finder support, and USB-C have improved it dramatically for such purposes.

That said, Final Cut Pro, Logic, XCode and a Terminal would be nice additions...

Maybe an ipad subsystem for macOS/Linux for advanced users? Or opening Virtual Machine support?

RE your subsystem idea - you can run iOS/iPad OS apps on the new Apple Silicon Mac's today (as long as developers allow it).

>So what exactly do you gain? Especially if they also come up with a M1 Macbook (no Air/Pro, the small version)

Fluidity of not having to carry or manage two devices would be the main attraction for me. M1 Mac's can already run iOS and iPad OS apps so there is no need for a dual boot mode. When I want the pure tablet experience I just stick to native iPad OS apps. When I need more power and flexibility, hook up a keyboard and track pad and now I can use MacOS apps effectively.

Heck if they actually paid a smidgen of attention to Mission Control it could easily provide the functionality to manage the different "modes" - at the minimum a macOS workspace vs. an iPad OS workspace.

The bits are there; are they motivated to do it? Probably not but it's still nice to dream about what it could be :p

I'm not sure if you remember but this was exactly the route that Windows 8 took and it was a giant failure. There was a "tablet" mode and a "Windows" mode with a start button. App developers couldn't figure out which one they wanted to optimize for and ended up making half-assed versions of their apps for both sides of the OS and end users were confused about which mode they needed to be in for which apps and how they could multitask to switch between them.

Power users didn't really have many issues as the paradigm isn't all that complex but, in daily usage, it was a big mess and it never made any headway. It was the first thing they got rid of in the first Windows 8 Service Pack. Apple knew that and saw it and I prefer their cautious approach and would be fully against what you're suggesting unless there are some major UI changes.

They could make it possible but a pain in the ass to run macos on the ipad. So normal users get a normal ipad that works great, and pros convert it in to a touch screen macbook.

If you jailbreak your iPad, there are tweaks that add real multitasking support and you can use a terminal. If that's not something you want to do, there's always the (very slow but really cool) https://ish.app/ that's an x86 emulator coupled with a syscall translation layer (like wine) so you can run lotsa Linux stuff on iOS.

A less flexible, but _much_ more performant option, is <a href="https://holzschu.github.io/a-Shell_iOS/">ashell.app</a>

The solution is to combine macOS and ipadOS on the iPad. So you can run iOS apps and macOS apps when one or the other is appropriate.

It maybe sounds weird but I have an Samsung tablet with Dex so I have experienced a little bit what this could be like. Without the keyboard attached, I run in regular Android mode but when I really want to get work done I connect a keyboard/mouse and switch to Dex to get a desktop experience. The downside to Dex is that the apps are still Android apps. But with macOS, you could have full Mac desktop apps running in a similar mode.

Besides the obvious reasons you mention above for why Apple doesn't put MacOS on the iPad, I think the other reason is slightly alluded to in the article: The device is not designed for that kind of computing in terms of battery size and thermal design. They've carefully constructed it to work with iOS.

> The device is not designed for that kind of computing in terms of battery size and thermal design

Thermal design, maybe, but the iPad Pro battery has higher capacity than the on in MacBook Air, and they share the same SoC.

2021 12.9” iPad pro is 40.88wh

2020 Macbook Air is 49.9wh

https://www.apple.com/ipad-pro/specs/ https://www.apple.com/macbook-air/specs/

I stand corrected. Pretty close though.

I would disagree. To me its allure is what it could be. At this point it is a device for consumption (alabit a great device for that) and for the 0.001% who are artists.

A touch-screen Mac osX with an optional keyboard would a genually new thing from Apple.

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.

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).

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 never 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.

Agreed, Apple wants to avoid Microsoft's failure with trying to splinter a desktop-oriented OS for all form factors. I tried to like Windows 8 but found it too confusing and frustrating to use.

While we might all like the idea of device convergence, the technology is not fully there yet. The new iPad Pro with M1 could be a sign of the future but Apple recognizes that adoption needs to be deliberate and slow - especially when there's millions of users at stake.

Ideally I'd like to see a "desktop mode" akin to the Samsung DeX announced at the upcoming WWDC. This would allow users to use their iPads as desktop replacements in a truer sense, together with keyboard, mice and an external monitor.

No, don't.

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.

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.

Some people want to use the iPad with a keyboard, mouse and external monitor. The iPad supports these things so why not let those users run full programs.

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.

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.

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.

However, I'd like to see:

    - 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

Bonus: Unlockable bootloader to run alternative OS's like M1 Macs can.

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!

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??

Isn't that the holy grail? A mobile device that becomes a full PC when you sit at a desk.

The iPad is a media consumption device, with tight controls so you don’t have to spend your time managing a million settings and updates, worrying about security. You can’t flip from that to an open OS back and forth.

If Apple ever went this way it would be by locking down MacOS, instead of opening up iPadOS.

The iPad has been far more than a media consumption device for a long time now. Two examples - the first is a whole community of people for whom the iPad is their primary or sole device:

https://www.macstories.net/ipad/

Second is Jason Snell, a LONG time Mac user, who prefers the iPad for editing audio for the many podcasts he is involved in: https://sixcolors.com/post/2015/11/editing-podcasts-on-ios-w...

Noticed this isn't a recent phenomenon for either of those examples. Jason in particular still has Mac's in his overall production chain ( https://sixcolors.com/post/2019/11/why-my-ipad-podcast-workf... )since there are still many significant shortcomings in iPad OS - so being able to run macOS on iPad Pro hardware would absolutely have value to what I would would wager is a significant user community.

Or Apple could just plug the many identified gaps in iPad OS. I won't be holding my breath for either to happen any time soon but I will welcome either if the day ever materializes.

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.

Mac OS did just fine without them until System 8, and the fact that it has one is just a side effect from NeXT acquisition.

macOS isn't really comparable to what it was in those days, nor is the environment around.

In our company I see a lot of web developers favouring Mac because they have a Linux-style commandline available. And console applications like vim are becoming more popular again.

I wouldn't see these guys working on an iPad though, however if an iPad would become a dockable macOS laptop I would.

Those guys would do better sponsoring Linux friendly OEMs, as they might be surprised when Apple only catters to iOS and macOS developers.

Console applications being trendy is more about nostalgia stuff than anything else.

I have been there where TUI was the best one could hope for and don't miss it for one second.

Any language can be used for automation and most modern environment support REPLs anyway.

As for vim, better watch out for VSCode and Sublime.

The problem with Linux is manageability. We can't manage Linux as strictly as our security department wants. Well, we could, but it would mean mandating a certain distro and highly customising this, removing root rights and tightly locking stuff down with SELinux etc. The developers have no interest in this and neither do I to manage it. Too many awkward edge cases. They can use Linux but they're banned from the network.

And "Just install whatever you like and configure it however you want" will just not work if they want it on the network. I know, old-style traditional IT mentality but this is what we're stuck with. The word of digital security is the law here. I have to work within their rules.

Apple has good MDM management APIs that can't be overridden even by admin users, good hardware and the devs are mostly happy with it. Locked-down Linux is worse than locked-down Mac. It's a tradeoff for all of us.

Well, given the return timesharing, those scenarios will eventually be a moot point.

I have been in projects were it is back in the old days, just instead of a UNIX account where I telnet/ssh into, and then do X forwarding, I get to use the cloud shell via the browser or start the respective Web UI, cloud IDE, with a perfectly normal user account and no root access.

The dream of most IT departments, back in control of what devs use and install.

The iPad is not a Mac. If you want macOS, get a Mac.

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.

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.

So no, putting macOS on would not be brave. It would be dumb.

I need an iPad for drawing. I could use the iPad for everything if the software allowed it. Why make me buy 2 devices that do the same thing and have the same hardware?

> I need an iPad for drawing.

Don’t confuse need with want. You have chosen to get an iPad to draw on, knowing the limitations of its touch-based OS. You could have gotten a Mac with a Wacom tablet or a Microsoft Surface instead, if you really wanted one machine for everything.

Ok to reword. I’m going to get the iPad since it is the best value drawing tablet. I don’t need or want a MacBook. With some realistic changes apple could let me run full desktop apps on the iPad when I have it docked with a keyboard and mouse

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.

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.

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.

It's not a missed opportunity. It's a smart, intentional decision. Allowing MacOS apps to run on an iPad would be one thing but actually having them run MacOS (the desktop version) would not be a good idea without significant changes to the UI.

(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)

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.

I want to be able to run and switch between iPad OS, MacOS, and alternatives like Linux. We need to legislate open hardware requirements.

This would be great, yes. Just being able to choose how to use it.

WWDC 2021 fortune teller, Catalist keeps improving, bringing even more iOS to macOS.

Yet another set of Swift/Objective-C APIs get introduced without equivalent capabilities on POSIX.

I have to agree with this.. Or at least put a touchscreen on Macs :) I prefer the laptop form factor but not having a touchscreen is a weird omission.

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.

You can now change size in iOS browsers per website, similar to desktop browsers. Click the "aA" icon at the upper left of the address bar and you'll see "a 100% A". By clicking the left or right icons, you can change the size percentage. It's very similar to desktop browsers. This relatively new functionality is also very close to where the UI is for "Show Reader View", so it's easy to miss.

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.

ios is way more locked down than macos is, and that's what apple really wants: more control. not less.

so if they dared, they would do just the opposite of what the article is asking.

android on laptops exists, and i believe chromebooks are similarly limited (i never used one, so i can't tell)

It's obvious that they don't want to disrupt their own cash cow monopoly app store.

and obliterate an entire product line?

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 :(

dual boot would make lot of sense to me, willing to pay for this additional feature.

I can then carry one device instead of two for my travel

Don't even need to dual boot. M1 Macs run iPad OS and iOS apps along side macOS apps today.

A little bit of polish with Mission Control would make switching between "iPad OS" and "macOS" modes fairly intuitive for some automation of say, adding a keyboard/trackpad to trigger full blown macOS mode and removing them triggering back to a Mission Control workspace that restores native iPad Pro look/fee.

I don't think it would be much of a heavy lift, and from an overall user experience perspective not as fiddly or confusing as some obnoxious UI changes they made from the transition from iTunes to Apple Music, for example :p

They could easily placate this by offering a ‘macos’ app that costs $100 on the app store that when pressed turns on m1-macos.

I hope they don't. The intent of these devices are different.

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