Jailbroken iOS can't run macOS apps – I spent a week to find out why (2021) | Hacker News Reader

Jailbroken iOS can't run macOS apps – I spent a week to find out why (2021)

worthdoingbadly.com

205 pointsmooreds154 comments

Still hoping someone releases a bootloader exploit for iPads that would allow dual booting macOS -- it's such a shame that my iPad has the same SoC as my Macbook, but is so incredibly limited; I can't even run a website in the background.

In what way? Or rather kind of websites are you referring to? I can listen to NPR or Spotify via the website on my iphone while using other apps which obviously isn't the full gamut of "run websites in the background" but I'm quite happy that works.

My general test case is to use YouTube as a music player in the background. On a laptop, this will always work without any issue. On any mobile-ish browser, it won’t.

Why did you buy one then? If only there was a way to signal to Apple that you do not like artificial limitations being imposed on you.

I'm disappointed that this question is downvoted, because I would also like to know the answer. I would guess it's "because even an artifically limited iPad is still better than every alternative," (which is fair. It's a personal preference, and those are all equally valid IMHO), but I've been trying to understand why people who dislike Apple's philosophy still buy so much Apple stuff.

That was definitely the reason I got an iPad. I looked but haven't found a tablet that has the same build quality, performance and battery life. Too bad the software is so locked down!

What do you use it for?.my tablet is primarily used for reading comics and technical books, at which it excels. If I need to do anything more challenging then it makes sense to use my laptop, even copy and paste between applications is a ballache on any tablet compared to a pc. So what is the extra apple price getting you, or more usefully what are you doing on the iPad that an alternative tablet could not do?

Valid question. For me, it’s about being in the apple ecosystem and seamlessly integrating with my other devices. I use it as a second monitor when traveling with my MacBook and use it as a HomeKit hub.

I'm in the same boat. I've got an ipad pro, meaning m1 and a good enough amount of ram and storage. I'd love for it to be able to run MacOS.

I bought it because I wanted a good tablet. I'd just like to be able to have a good tablet and not have to buy a Macbook too since I have decent windows machines anyway. It's a want, not a need, to be able to run macos.

I can't find anything even close to the iPad plus Pencil for sketching/crative stuff. First I tried a Yoga 2-in-1, then a Surface, both Windows & Linux... Then I tried an iPad pro. It's just no contest. The iPad and Pencil always have battery, always ready to go, and there are tons of very high-quality stylus-oriented apps. The other platforms were a laborious wasteland.

It's frustrating because I mostly use Linux elsewhere.

(that said, the iPad has some idiotic warts too... like file sync is terrible, and Apple makes it so it's basically impossible for apps to fix that. And 30% is highway robbery)

Next time go with a Samsung tablet.

At least iPadOS isn’t preloaded with crud and questionable at best modifications like Android on many devices is.

One of my biggest gripes with Android devices is that they don’t come with the option of installing plain mainline Android out of the box, meaning you’re stuck with whatever modifications e.g. Samsung has deemed necessary until a big third party distro like LineageOS adds support for your device or someone on some forum posts a dodgy unofficial build. This means that if you want a clean experience your best bet is to be behind the curve on hardware but that’s no fun, particularly if you’re wanting to use the device for a task where the extra power (or lack thereof) is readily apparent.

I’d be more inclined to buy something like a Galaxy tablet if I could treat them like prebuilt Windows PCs and upon receiving them nuke them and put clean Android on them, but that doesn’t look to be happening any time soon. I know open tablet projects exist to fix this and that’s great, but those suffer from hardware that’s anemic in comparison to flagship bigcorp stuff.

> I’d be more inclined to buy something like a Galaxy tablet if I could treat them like prebuilt Windows PCs and upon receiving them nuke them and put clean Android on them

I'm a bit confused by this statement.

1. What is "clean" Android?

2. How do you put clean Android on a prebuilt Windows PC?

3. Why do you put clean Android on any PC?

Replace all instances of the word “them” with “tablet” and re-read.

The them isn’t referring to a windows PC.

“I’d be more inclined to buy something like a Galaxy tablet if I could treat them [a Galaxy tablet] like prebuilt Windows PCs and upon receiving them[a Galaxy tablet] nuke them [a Galaxy Tablet] and put clean Android on them [the Galaxy tablet]”

For #1, "clean" Android is analogous to "clean" Windows, in other words Android minus all carrier and manufacturer junk.

For #2 and #3, it's as the sibling comments say; I want to be able to replace the customized versions of Android bundled by OEMs with "clean" Android, even if the device was just released yesterday.

I'm pretty pleased with my Samsung Galaxy Tab S8+. The stylus feels nice and the performance is good. I can even run 3d games like Warhammer 40k mechanicus and it's not too much of a downgrade from pc graphics. All this whole being super thin. Removable SD card is also great. There's some rough edges: chiefly the stylus only charges in one orientation. And Samsung preloads it with a bunch of crap. But I'd prefer it over a iPad any day.

In some cases like phones, it is because Apple supports their phones much longer than any Android phone. My iPhone SE from 2016 just got an update -- that's crazy. That being said, I still dislike many of Apple's practices, but there really isn't a better alternative. (IMO, Phones in general are trash. They should last as long as desktop computers).

> (IMO, Phones in general are trash. They should last as long as desktop computers)

This is exactly why I bought Librem 5 smartphone running desktop Linux. It will get updates forever.

iPhone SE is £450 right now, I could buy a Xiaomi for less than half that and another one in 2 years time, getting hardware updates and software updates. Combined with apples policy of throttling older devices the ongoing OS support isn't that much of a benefit. Personally I stopped using iPhones after the iaPhoje4 when apple made it a huge ballache to repair a broken screen. The iPhine 3g was the easiest phone I have ever replaced a screen on and I fixed a lot of them from the original iPhone, but the time sink on a 4 made it uneconomical, infused to do then for £50 and would have it done I. 15 minutes. The 4 had to be disassembled entirely and reassembled, and you couldn't check the screen until it was all back together, loose connection, bad part, tough, disassemble/reassemble

I like extended software updates NOT for the price, but because I don't create as much e-waste buying 2 phones instead of 1.

> Combined with apples policy of throttling older devices

What policy are you talking about?

Oh yeah no it was a whole thing. Apple paid out over $100 million because they were slowing down older phones.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/11/apple-settles-wi...

It was typical Apple arrogance but the actual issue is not nefarious, aging batteries deliver less and less current and eventually it makes devices crash or power off unexpectedly. Always been that way. They just figured out you could improve stability by throttling the CPU to reduce current draw and didn't bother to tell customers.

In reality we should think of most modern devices as wearing out over time. Batteries age, flash cells go bad, LEDs dim, OLEDs burn in... Most everything gets slower / worse with use and it would be better if device manufacturers disclosed that clearly.

Apple is just built different as a tech company. Even with the limitations their products are vastly, vastly better than the alternatives. It is literally impossible, for example, to get a smartphone from another vendor anywhere near as powerful as the latest iPhone. So people buy iPhones and deal with or work around the limitations.

But what good is all that power when you can't run the workloads you want to?

You can do video editing on the iPad which takes advantage of the full power.

You can also do a lot with audio. The touch interface is much better for playing/performing instruments, sequencers, etc. As the processors get more powerful the apps get better.

I don’t understand. If you can’t run the workloads you want why in the world would you buy one?

“But it could! It has enough power! All they would need to do is overhaul the OS, open the file system, and… Well ok it would probably be easier to add touch to MacOS, how hard could it be? Well ok, to do that properly would take a lot of work but I’ve got it all figured out and Apple is stupid for not….”

Every time people complain about how “crippled” the ipad is they inevitably point out some task that is perfectly suited to a laptop. On top of that, the laptops are less expensive and now have longer batteries. Apple has made the ipad very good at touch and pen computing with a very safe, simple OS. If they stick to that paradigm that will preclude running IDEs, servers, databases, and running arbitrary code. Most of the complaints boil down to MacOS not having touch which I don’t understand either but I wish people would just give the crippled ipad narrative a rest.

Sure, doing stuff like compiling code is perfectly suited to a laptop, but taking notes in math class or drawing a diagram is not. A tablet with a keyboard and pen can do it all, the iPad with its limitations can not. Now you need 2 devices when really one could do.

Personally I don't like MacOS, I'd rather iPadOS just dropped the limiters.

There are workloads that do use that power though. Various drawing, graphics, and photography programs make heavy use of AI. What other processor should Apple use for iPads that need that kind of processing? People that complain about power in the ipad have it backwards. Apple puts in the least powerful processor in the ipad it can and still be able to handle the AI demands, screen responsiveness, storage, and other high end processing needs used by creative people.

“What could you possibly need that much power for on an iPad?” Well, Apple put the M1 in it and now it can run Davinci Resolve, handle many more layers in Procreate, handle more tracks/virtual instruments/effects in audio programs, do incredibly fast ML adjustments in Photoshop/Affinity/Pixelmator etc. Who knows what will be coming out next because of the power available?

Apple takes advantage of economies of scale to put a more powerful processor in the ipad and people actually complain about it. In the meantime app developers make better products and people find new workflows that have opened up.

Their limitations are features in many ways. I don’t need to run a web server on my iPad, but I’m glad that shitty apps can’t be always running wasting battery to provide advert notifications like they used to on android.

That's fine and well, but it's still not a justification for taking the option away from other users.

I don’t need a justification for other peoples use cases. The device does exactly what I want so I bought it. If I waned a device I could run webservers on, I’d buy something else.

If they changed the advertised capabilities after purchase, that would be different.

The device does exactly what I want too, except Apple directly prevents me from loading the code that I want to run on-device.

> If they changed the advertised capabilities after purchase, that would be different.

The suggestion I'm making does not remove any advertised capabilities. There is no 'difference' to speak of. Again, nobody has given a concrete reason why the things that I want stop you from getting what you want.

Having a long battery life sells more iPads than being infinitely hackable.

You still haven't explained how the two are mutually exclusive.

I disagree for a few reasons. Apple hasn’t taken anything away - the option never existed. This is a meaningful difference up front.

Apple clearly intends to sell a product that delivers a consistent experience, and they do that by refusing to offer some kinds of flexibility.

The moment that flexibility exists, the entire ecosystem changes, and it’s not just about you individually having some option. At that point, it becomes a different product entirely.

I don’t try to take my two wheel drive hatchback off-roading. There are better vehicles for that.

> It is literally impossible, for example, to get a smartphone from another vendor anywhere near as powerful as the latest iPhone

What's the point of having all of that extra power if the pre apple silicon iphones could already run their workload fine? It isn't like it will make the device last any longer because of the planned obsolescence with the battery

What's the point of having the most powerful mobile cpu if the average mobile workload won't come close to ever using it?

edit: Maybe it's because apple is trying to diversify the average mobile workload to cover more use cases. This way people who struggle with a full desktop OS won't have to leave the safe and happy garden

Vastly, vastly is ridiculous. An iPad Pro is a bit faster than the Samsung Galaxy Tab and there's some nice iOS apps. But it's not leagues better, it's not like comparing a C64 and modern PC, it's like comparing an i5 with an i9. And the limitations Apple stuffs in place actually makes it worse in some ways. Multi-tasking is just plain old better on Samsung Android with the ability to do radical things like have 4 way app splits, overlapping resizable windows and to top it off it's actually somehow MORE intuitive than multi-tasking on the iPad.

> Even with the limitations their products are vastly, vastly better than the alternatives.

I could claim that my Pixel which lets me run multiple user profiles (each with its own copy of Gmail, Outlook, Teams settings - which I can switch while at work), run Firefox or any other browser, change default apps, change the default Home app, run a server in the background, a working voice assistant, etc - is vastly superior to anything on Apple's devices. But that would be a very subjective opinion.

And FWIW, the Pixel 7 was MKBHD's phone of the year. So I'd say your claims of Apple's offerings being vastly, vastly superious can be easily contested.

Is that portmanteau of "superior" and "specious"? I almost don't want it to be a typo.

. o O ( Leaving aside how typo-ridden some of my own pose have been. )

Superior hardware is useless if it can't do the things I actually want it to do.

Imagine having a 0 to 100 scale of how much we value the device. Some of us are somewhere around 70 or 80 for the mac laptops, and 50 for iPads.

That’s why you’ll hear very critical takes while people might still be buying the device.

Also I’m of the opinion that buying something shouldn’t mean closing ones eyes about its flaws or being lucid on what you hate about it. The “voting with your wallet” thing is to me just a meme that want the world to look more simple than it is, except if you’re actually donating to lobbies to bribe politicians.

To take another example, I would understand someone buying iPhones while completely hating Apple’s attitude toward developers and consumers in general, the world is just that complicated.

Even so, this just goes back to the question of "why does Apple get 30% of each transaction", since artificially preventing people from sideloading Android is one of the main ways they achieve all of their goals: 30% cut of video game IAPs, security in the face of evil maid attacks, and maintaining their brand image (since people might still blame Apple for Android running slow/having short battery life on iPhone hardware). All of this is because iPhone is a product, not a general purpose computer that you can do anything on, and this philosophy is the reason iPhone "just works", while everyone has seen some windows laptop running slow due to McAfee or Norton Antivirus bloatware, or infested with adware and 100 shell extensions. Even Macs are more likely to have malware since you have the choice to install whatever you want, while the furthest iOS malware can go is excessive tracking to third parties (the xcode virus/the Life360 app); you won't find adware that infects every app or uses your phone as a botnet zombie.

Apple has paid out about $20 million dollars in their security bounty program, and a good portion of that must be iOS-related, so much so that they offer dedicated iOS devices to researchers.

iPhones have been jailbroken by visiting a webpage, receiving a message, or joining a WiFi network.

Just about every single iOS release is patching a vuln that was reported or found in the wild being exploited.

So, really, is the "furthest iOS malware" concern being 3rd party tracking a genuine statement?

Given it’s much harder to get malware through the App Store than it is to get it through the macOS notarization system (or just telling people to right click open your dmg), you certainly won’t find iOS malware affecting a large amount of users unless those users seek it out (via jailbreaks) or are individuals at risk of extremely targeted attacks, which is what lockdown mode aims to guard against: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/07/apple-expands-commitm...

You should define “malware”. There is wide variety of apps that harm users to different degrees, and I’m not sure we’re sharing the same definitions of what the App Store is supposed to protect their users from.

In particular, an app that signs you up for a $100/month subscription behind your back that's impossible to cancel via some dark UX patterns, will make it through the notarization system just fine, no jailbreak or exploit needed.

> that's impossible to cancel via some dark UX patterns

The scandalous $10 per week kid’s games definitely exist, but in fairness, you made this part up, as all subscriptions are easily accessible on your clearly labeled ‘Subscriptions’ page, and canceled by clicking the big red ‘Cancel subscription’ button.

To note, the “easily accessible” part is for people with an Apple device with iCloud set as the target account.

You don’t have another Apple device to manage your kid’s subscriptions ? it’s simple ! Download iTunes on Windows! No windows or can’t/don’t want to install iTunes? Tough luck.

You’d think icloud.com has feature parity regarding payment managements and critical settings, and no, it doesn’t [0]

BTW having multiple Apple devices still won’t make it that much easier if you happen to use different Apple IDs (if you need access to more than one country’s store for instance, or separate work and personal profiles): logging in and out is a PITA with the Find My Devices lock and 2FA.

[0] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202039

> To note, the “easily accessible” part is for people with an Apple device with iCloud set as the target account. > You don’t have another Apple device to manage your kid’s subscriptions ? it’s simple ! Download iTunes on Windows! No windows or can’t/don’t want to install iTunes? Tough luck.

Wow I’m speechless.

Not having access to your kids’ device, and not having access to a linked Apple device, and not having access to a Windows device, and not being willing to download iTunes is considered a dark pattern??

Sometimes I really wonder about the little anti-Apple bubble some people live in…

It isn't that hard really.

You're a linux/android parent and your teenage kid wants an iPhone. Will you take their phone every now and then just to check subscriptions etc. ?

Or, each family member has an iPhone with their own account, and no other Apple device. You'll be switching anytime you want to check. etc.

I'm aware of these limitations because I've hit them so many time, while having 5 Apple devices at hand. I get it might be s 80/20 split with it being really simple for 80%. But IMO that's just not good enough, at least not 15 years after the first device launch.

[edit] I'm kinda surprise how the goalpost is shifted from "hey it's easy" to "go install iTunes if you're on windows". I having a website too much to ask really ?

> I'm kinda surprise how the goalpost is shifted from "hey it's easy" to "go install iTunes if you're on windows". I having a website too much to ask really ?

Dunno where you got the idea that I somehow ‘shifted the goalpost’ from “it’s easy…”?

The poster I was answering said that Apple made it “impossible” to cancel subscriptions by using “dark patterns” and this somehow got transformed into some vanishingly tiny, special HN-case of a person running Linux who doesn’t have another Apple device and ‘cannot’ install iTunes with a teenager who’s phone they can never access to check subscriptions…

Oh well - the anti-Apple fanatics here will downvote absolutely anything, I guess - including anyone responding to utter garbage like this.

F-Droid app store has no malware, even though it does not benefit from Apple's approach to security. All you need in practice is free software.

Which besides a few users waiting for the return of OpenMoko, no one else cares about, including malware authors.

Would you say the same about the Linux repositories?

Depends on how we go about regarding the Year of Desktop Linux, alternative repos, snaps and flatpak, and best of all, curl | sh installs.

Let's just limit ourselves to servers with the original repos, for simiplicity.

So be it, many of these vulnerabilities can be used as entry point,

https://vulmon.com/searchpage?q=debian+debian+linux+11&sortb...

I did not find any evidence of malware in the repos from your link. Vulnerabilities also exist for iOS and MacOS.

My original claim was that, in order to avoid malware in repos, all you need is free software.

If you want to avoid all vulnerabilities instead, try Qubes OS.

I think the difference of treatment just brings different attack vectors. Monetary scams for instance, especially through subscriptions are more common on iOS. Apple taking 30% just means less incentives for them to drastically deal with those, as they still get a cut of the money passing by.

On the other hand browsers being much more capable on macos also means way less native apps to download/install, which allows to greatly reduce the attack surface IMHO. You can tell family members to just never execute anything (I don’t use windows, so nothing to say about antiviruses)

As a side not, the “just works” also often translates to “tough luck”. There’s still a number of times where I put down my iPad to take my android phone because it’s just much simpler. Some of these pains would be alleviated if I used Apple services absolutely everywhere in my life, just as Sony products would make sense if your housewold was 100% filled with Sony products in the 90s. But That’s really not a choice I’m willing to make.

Windows.is slowly going away from the "general purpose computer".

MacOS doesn't support touch, at all.

The day Apple will release a MacOS version with touch support that runs on iPads, most of the Macbook line-up will likely cease to exist.

While this may still happen one day, to this day Apple is already very happy to sell the current iPad to mostly buyers, not users, who may even be scared of the many buttons and windows of a full featured operating system on their limited but intuitive and easy-to-use device.

The modBook, released for the last decade, would like to have a word with you.

Again, Pen != touch.

I actually use a 10-points touch enabled monitor with macOS (because reasons...), it needs aftermarket drivers[0]. And even with them the macOS UI is not touch nor multi-touch ready.

And it seems there are no plans yet for it[1].

[0]: https://www.touch-base.com/

[1]: https://www.macobserver.com/news/craig-federighi-no-touchscr...

MacOS supports touch. Natively.

Try using an iPad as an external display on a Mac using Sidecar.

It will accept Apple Pencil input.

The pencil, unlike fingers, is an accurate pointer device, like the mouse cursor.

This is not a touch input. This is a pen input.

It’s an arbitrary restriction and would probably take 2 lines of code to fix it.

There are third party tools that have fixed it, namely Duet Display

Ok, proof, for everyone.

Just try this website on any iPhone or iPad: http://borismus.github.io/mobile-web-samples/browser-ninja/

You should be able to generate some graphic fractals by touch (or multi-touch).

Now try it with your Sidecar/Duet Display/Wacom touch/whatever.

Good Luck!

PS: You may try it also on some Windows device with touch support (both notebook/convertibles/Surface). It should work, because Windows, unlike macOS, natively supports touch.

Hmmm, I used to use macOS with a Wacom "Pen & Touch" tablet.

Pretty sure (~85%) the "touch" functionality used to work fine.

I also used to have one years ago, like other solutions it mapped some gestures to some functionality, but at the end it just moved the mouse cursor and simulated mouse clicks or double/right clicks.

Really, macOS doesn't really support touch points. I'm astonished how many people don't get it on this thread.

Been thinking this over.

As it seems like people are using "touch" things on macOS and - for them - it's working well... perhaps the "macOS doesn't really support touch points" thing isn't really a problem?

When people can't tell, is it really needed? I mean, it's already working. At least for Wacom tablets. ;)

The sentence starting with "if only" doesn't sound like it's being made as a good faith argument. Within its form factor, the iPad is still, in spite of its limitations, an obvious leader.

- Best of all options

- … if more are needed, the pen and especially the keyboard are genius.

- I have grown more distrustful of what Google actually does than what Apple might

That all said, I can’t think of other devices that are so intentionally limited as the iPad(Pro) really is. Maybe a powerful sports car with a governor in it? Most devices are designed to meet a certain usage profile, but the iPad is unique in that there is so much left on the table in so many ways. I would be overjoyed if I knew one day I could load up an actual OS on to this amazing thing.

They might not have known which chipset is in the device when they got it. It sounds like something you'd find out later own and look into expanding the device's usability, only to get disappointed because (surprise) it's Apple.

I would have assumed form factor...

Apple doesn't hear when you don't buy an iPad, so it's a strange signal.

> If only there was a way to signal to Apple that you do not like artificial limitations

In Europe they call it legislation!

In Europe, most people give money to Google instead.

Building the world you want to see via individual purchasing decisions is an extremely neoliberal (whether lib or con) notion.

Perhaps there are things that they like about the tool and that work well enough in iOS.

There is no line item veto on signaling liking or disliking a thing overall. It is possible to (for example) dislike locked down systems but like having a tablet that works well for normal purposes, and for that balance to end up with a purchase.

People like to act like buying a thing with properties they don't like is something only rubes do, but everyone does this all the time. It's perfectly reasonable to want things to be better without actively boycotting something that is merely mediocre!

One can simultaneously find practicality in a device in its current state while also recognizing its flaws or obvious potential. It’s not an all or nothing situation.

Every non-PC device nowadays has artificial limitations.

A MacBook is my main development computer but is because is the one the company I work for gave me, they didn't let me pick or anything, I would have never picked it over a Windows alternative, still I like to talk about the things and dislike and the few I like about it. In general good idea to not in mediately assume that just because you are an user of something you were the one that bought it or chose it.

Wallet voting doesn't change patent or copyrights. Doesn't change political influence, and certainly doesn't change the market. That's a lie made up so people think they have some control of big essential corps. Microsoft, or Apple or any other big names are essential services. They will do whatever they want, and you have to buy it eventually. The decisions are made by execs whom don't associate with consumers like you or I. Any time Apple makes a change, it's not because they read feedback. It's because of the whims of big wigs at apple.

And apple hands down makes the best tech. By being born you're in the game, and to compete you need what the other guy is competing with.

Because there are things that only work on an iPad, such as accessing the high quality touch-enabled audio/music apps that only run on iOS. Most app makers simply don't create them for Android.

I think it is an awesome product, but that does not mean that I am against Apple being forced to open up their walled garden. Voting with my wallet does not always help.

It’s kind of funny to think that my buying choices will influence a trillion dollar company. There are limits to market theory, it does not lead to perfect products.

With a recent announcement that Apple is considering third party app stores and side-loading, I’m betting that future iPhones with USB-C and iPads will enable some form of docking that will enable a rudimentary desktop environment and let you run desktop Mac OS apps.

Why would Apple reduce the number of devices you need to buy?

Could make them each the price of 2 (once over)

You’d need drivers too?

Buy a windows machine?

Honestly, it feels like something Apple might be working towards with Universal apps (allowing you to run iPad apps in "macOS mode") and iOS-ifying macOS (Settings, larger would-be touch targets).

Stage Manager being a feature that shipped to both macOS and iOS and requires Apple Silicon is also a pretty good hint.

If I could plug an iPhone into a thunderbolt/USB4 dock with dual monitors, keyboard, mouse and it threw up full fat, administrator access MacOS on the screens - I would be the owner of an iPhone Pro

That's a no brainer, it would be my work computer. With my MBP, I already offload all compilation/language server/development processing to a remote computer with a 5900x - so all I need is a client that can run most apps (browser, code editor shell, etc) fairly quickly

That goes for Android phones too - except with a Linux distro rather than MacOS

Samsung tried this with their DeX mode and I was deeply saddened it didn’t catch on more.

I suspect this is more a software ecosystem problem.

The only other party that's capable of pushing this kind of functionality onto the industry is Google, and Google does not have HDMI out on any of their current Pixels. Perhaps it's intentional to prevent Android from competing in the same market as Chromebook.

I actually had to use DeX in an "emergency" and I was impressed how well it worked. Connected to the work VPN, connected to my workstation via VNC and got some work done. Everything "just worked", I was shocked at how smooth the entire experience was.

It's still there. It's not past tense.

My phone only supports outputting to one external screen (unless you count mirroring or the phone's screen)

The most obvious limitation to me is none of the browsers really adapt to being on a desktop (middle click open new tab, multiple windows, dev tools).

Is it "Desktop mode" as in Android on the desktop - or is it Desktop Linux (like KDE or Gnome) backed by some distro flavour?

Android on the desktop.

The only desktop exclusive app is the shell itself. Otherwise it's all the same apps as you'd be using in phone mode.

The shell is Samsung's own thing. But it works well enough- it has a start menu like launcher. It has floating windows (like every mainstream desktop os), but if you launch too many older apps disappear. You can switch windows with alt tab, using the window list at the bottom of the screen or clicking behind your current window.

Samsung Dex keeps on getting better. Which is surprising because no one uses it.

Possibly because Samsung has a terrible history of making products that only work on one version of their product.

Desktop mode is already available on Samsung, Huawei and Motorola phones.

On their latest handsets?

Samsung have had theirs for years, but only on their higher end handsets

I liked and used Windows Continuum on my Lumia 950 XL back in the day, but sadly Windows Mobile was killed not long after. It allowed Windows Store apps to run like they would on a regular desktop Windows 10. I had a tiny but surprisingly heavy duty USB-C dock.

Discussed at the time:

Jailbroken iOS can't run macOS apps. I spent a week to find out why - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27420673 - June 2021 (64 comments)

“There’s also no way to replace the iOS kernel and drivers with the macOS equivalents: macOS only supports M1 devices, and no iOS devices past the iPhone X have known bootloader exploits.”

I believe the Apple Silicon dev kit ran on a A series cpu, might be the entry point to try to investigate, especially if a boatloader exploit is found.

You're right. M1 is a SoC, not an architecture. macOS used to only support Intel chips but that never stopped the hackintosh crowd from getting it working on certain AMD chips.

Imagine just how much low level fuckery it would take to get MacOS booted in a Snapdragon device of any sort. It would support absolutely nothing there by default.

https://opensource.apple.com/source/xnu/xnu-4903.221.2/pexpe...

The kernel can boot on the rPI

I think one of the big unstated challenges (but implied by the reference to needing a bootloader exploit) is that KTRR/CTRR [1] prevents new executable kernel code from being introduced after the device boots, even if the kernel is fully compromised. This is a hardware feature and is not one that has (publicly) been bypassed in recent memory. In other words, without a bootloader exploit it is not possible to map the macOS kernel on an iOS device

[1] https://blog.siguza.net/KTRR/

>I believe the Apple Silicon dev kit ran on a A series cpu

Are any of these even still in the wild? I thought they were basically loaners until the M1 Mini's (and other computers) were unveiled/released.

At least one of the dev kits is still out there - a video was posted on yt last week: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpzW63pQdHI

A handful of people still have theirs.

On an iOS device without bootloader exploit - any reason we can't do somthing similar to a kexec()? That is, replace a running kernel with a new one.

Can’t bring in new executable code.

> Put macOS on iPad, you cowards.

This would finally solve one of my biggest heartbreaks with the iPad...

Not that it would be more powerful (it would be), but that the iPad Pro could run macOS and the “normie iPad” could go back to being a dead-simple experience.

With the iPad 1 and 2 I was shouting from the rooftops “get your parents an iPad, get your grandparents and iPad, get every non-tech person an iPad!”. When it came out it was opposite an overly-complicated industry with the majority of new users being terrified of pressing a button that breaks something. The iPad was a genuine solution to that in a way that nothing else was (and even now almost nothing is, including the iPad).

Let the Pros have macOS and everyone else have an elegant intuition-focused iOS.

My read is that Apple would very much like to move in the opposite direction where more people are in a locked down walled garden environment. I think if anything we’ll see macOS slowly moving more toward an iOS experience rather than enabling less lockdowns on apple devices.

I agree that they want walled gardens (it seems like the only thing holding them back is not wanting to boil the water quick enough to make everyone jump out), but they could continue that move just the same whether they put macOS on an iPad or not.

Many FOSS folks that buy Apple instead of supporting Linux OEMs never got the point that Apple never had a UNIX culture.

Macs during System days were as closed as modern Apple devices, and stuff like A/UX were more of an experiment than anything else.

The reverse acquisition of NeXT brought some UNIX culture into Apple, but even then, Steve Jobs always saw it as a checkbook item, a detail to make NeXTSTEP relevant in the UNIX workstation market.

Apple saw it as a survival mechanism to get out of their crash course.

Now that they are better than ever, they can happily go back to 1990's way of working.

> Macs during System days were as closed as modern Apple devices

An important difference is that classic MacOS didn't actively scare users away from installing apps outside a centralized shop controlled by Apple (which didn't even exist back then).

That is the only difference, Mac OS was as proprietary as it could be.

Had Copland been better managed, not even OpenGL would ever got a place on it, rather Quickdraw 3D.

Probably you are right. iOS/iPadOS apps will be everywhere soon. I believe it's already possible to run iOS apps on M-chip macs (I don't have M-chip mac to check it though). So you could just make an iPad app and it will work on both platforms.

The developer has to enable running on Mac, but for those that have they run really well. Most feel perfectly native even though they were designed for iPad.

If you want a customizable experience, apple is NOT what you should buy.

The author is a little loosey-goosey with some strong claims, eg that Jobs saying the iPhone ran OS X was a lie. How truthful that was at the time seems pretty unknowable from the outside in 2021, given that the iPhone OS has been rebranded at least twice since, and has had ample time not just to diverge but to reinfluence macOS née OS X.

A somewhat unlikely best case is this was an incomplete truth—ie the original iPhone OS was stock OS X with only additive stuff at the app level to support iPhone use cases. Unlikely because it’s hard to imagine the core OS being totally able to support that without modification.

At worst, the fib was an overgeneralization of Darwin, but I think this is unsupportable. There’s too much in common between the OSes even today, and anyone with an iPad and a keyboard can discover just how much macOS is still present even if it’s not visible. Or anyone with a Mac can fire up iOS Simulator and do the same.

More likely it was shorthand for saying that what eventually became iOS was a mainline part of the core OS project, whatever its divergence from there—ie it shared everything or nearly everything below WindowServer, and quite a lot of what sits above WS, and divergence was primarily oriented around hardware and UX. The former has since mostly converged, and the latter has been gradually percolating up to the mainline OS.

At the time, the iPhone was a gamble and likely to be seen as a reckless one. Apple had failed to deliver on several prior OS efforts; signaling that this was building on their success was important. Now iOS is their main profit center, and investments in old guard Macs really have to shine. Most of that shine has been making Macs more like the iPhone.

I think a more complete convergence is pretty likely, but I think it’s also likely to be more radical than “put macOS on iPads you cowards”: they’ll merge macOS into main. Not in the sense of haplessly shoving iOS UX onto Macs, but in the sense that iOS is fundamentally the core OS now and it’s macOS that’s diverged from that. Whatever the unification looks like, it’ll go that direction.

iOS was actually called OS X at the time. It was before they changed the name to iOS. But it was never called Mac OS X, which was the name of Apple's OS in 2007, which changed to just OS X around the time of the rebranding to iOS.

It didn't have a name, just "a version of OS X", then it was called iPhone OS when they released the SDK and the App Store.

It was iPhoneOS at launch, but prior to that it was formally known as "OS X."

This was also part of how they debranded Mac OS X, which took some time but this is how it began. But it was understood clearly then that they were the ~same OS, and “OS X” was in common usage by Apple including by Jobs at the time too

First three versions were called iPhone OS. Version 4 was when name was changed to iOS.

The author is a little loosey-goosey with some strong claims, eg that Jobs saying the iPhone ran OS X was a lie.

I noticed this too. This kind of hyperbolic assumption of bad faith for small inconsistencies seems to be fashionable at the moment. It often seems like it might be a manufactured assumption (although perhaps that’s me starting to fall into the same pattern…)

It really makes me sad (and worried for public discourse) every time I see something like it.

I used “loosey-goosey” for a reason. I really don’t think it was meant in bad faith. I think it was probably just lack of familiarity with the history, and sloppy hyperbole. My correction is intended more as gap filling than calling out the article’s claim.

People make mistakes! It’s okay, it’s probably better for public discourse to give them some grace unless it’s egregious or clearly intentional.

it’s probably better for public discourse to give them some grace unless it’s egregious or clearly intentional

That’s kind of what I’m saying too. The difference here, and reason I feel okay calling it out, is that it is itself an example of not doing that.

I don’t think it is! I think the language overshot what they meant to say, and I don’t think it was egregious. My whole point was to add historical context, partly because that was lacking but mostly because the mistake was totally understandable without it. I don’t think the article meant to cast aspersions on anyone, or if it did it meant it in a very lighthearted manner with not much commitment to those aspersions. Correcting that with also a light heart is okay too.

Then perhaps the part of your original post I responded to is not in fact about the thing I thought it was.

I’m definitely with you that we should not be quick to assume malice or bad faith in general.

The casual normalization of using heavy words like ‘lie’ - which assume malice on the part of others - is exactly the thing I’m worried by though. It’s almost worse if it was unintentional.

It encourages (popularizes?) a adversarial mode of thought that I don’t think should be the default.

People casually use terms like “lie” fairly freely, at least they used to do, to mean saying something said is untrue… without intentionally casting aspersions on the subject. If we can tell that someone is using this colloquial form, and doesn’t otherwise seem to be aggressively adversarial about that usage, shouldn’t we apply the best-intent-assumption to our own interpretations? Maybe it’ll even help to make the more intentionally adversarial usage more obvious.

"After a week’s work, we determined: that was a lie." (complete with dank text-overlay meme).

For Jobs it was a useful simplification (one of many) so the audience could understand the underpinnings. I don't think anyone rational thought the 4gb device on an entirely different architecture was actually running cat-branded OS X. You'd definitely not need a week to figure that out either.

Then to position this statement so early in the piece as some proof of their abilities or authority to speak on the matter does precisely opposite.

As much as hating on Jobs is fashionable, the bigger hyperbole is calling his statement a lie. iPhone OS and iOS both borrow heavily from OSX/macOS.

> eg that Jobs saying the iPhone ran OS X was a lie

Yeah that made me roll eyes too. From a coder's point of view, iOS is macOS with just a few very small differences. E.g. I can build Metal-based apps that share 99% of the source code between their macOS and iOS versions. Just a small ifdef'ed code block here and there is all that's needed.

As for the UI layer, this was a right decision to start from scratch, since laptops and touch devices need a very different UI philosophy (I wish that the current macOS and iOS teams would better understand this - trying to merge the two UI philosophies will only result in pain and suffering for all users, as Windows had already shown - this doesn't mean that there couldn't be a very high level UI framework which is abstract enough to map the same UI declaration to two vastly different UIs though).

I just configured an iPad Pro and total is: $3,026.00.

I can't imagine being stuck with iPad's OS after spending $3,300 with tax for a tablet. This is bonkers.

Why the heck would you buy an iPad Pro. They’re vanity items sold as productivity devices. Have you EVER seen someone using one other than for YouTube? The closest to work I saw was document annotation.

I've met several graphical artists who loved working on their iPad Pros.

Pros are great for running multiple simulation synthesizers feeding AUM ( an audio... DAW of sorts, more like a pipeline), possibly driven by a polyphonic controller

It costs real money to take the most powerful MacBook Air, improve the screen (refresh rate and multitouch) and storage, move the motherboard from base to screen, make the keyboard optional and detachable, and add cellular connectivity, all in a smaller form factor, while as reliable, instantly ready to use, and as it-just-works as an appliance.

Note that removing the keyboard where 'slate' is the first class modality, is enough of a UX shift apps should be designed 'slate first' to not upset buyers who paid $3,300 with tax.

As for "stuck with", well, web works, O365 works, Affinity creative suite works with pencil no less, and remote dev experiences work, to name a few.

Meanwhile this thread can be browsed like a magazine while lying on a couch, with responses typed like a Blackberry.

>As for "stuck with", well, web works, O365 works, Affinity creative suite works with pencil no less, and remote dev experiences work, to name a few.

One chrome book please

> which is computed at compile time. However, MACH_VM_MAX_ADDRESS differs on iOS and macOS, since iOS has a smaller address space and uses more bits in the pointer for PAC signatures.

I wonder if there's a point of even having these differences in the first place as the specs of MacOS and iOS computers converge. It's weird how little MacOS has changed since like 2012, I'm surprised apple hasn't ruined it yet

Maybe it can run X Windows.

Is this really a surprise?

Anyone doing native development knows that they aren't the same thing, only similar at the level of Objective-C and Swift frameworks.

Interesting. Probably don’t run mac on it as compatibility is challenging for a solid user experience

>I should stop doing my research in the last hours before WWDC so I’d have time to revise this post instead of uploading my first draft

But then you don’t get to humblebrag about it. Roll eyes.

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