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Comment by timestretch | Hacker News Reader

I'd buy an iPad immediately if I could run MacOS on it.

Surface tablets exist (they can run Linux but I'd stick with Windows on them). 2-in-1 laptop/tablet hybrids have also existed for a while, sold with Windows and ChromeOS but many of them work fine with standard Linux.

Some models can even become relatively competent Hackintosh, though macOS lacks proper pen drivers of course.

Samsung has Dex, which is a desktop interface for Android tablets (and phones hooked up to a dock). For a while they experimented with offering a full Ubuntu desktop, but I believe they've stopped that experiment.

Honestly, Apple seems to be the only tablet manufacturer that still tries its hardest to push professional users back to laptops. With the virtualisation support in Android 13+, I wonder how long it'll take before someone brings out the first macOS-on-Samsung-Galaxy app; various people have already run Windows 11 as a proof of concept on Pixel devices so who knows how long it'll take.

Too bad surface processors are not near as good as apple's M series both in terms of performance and battery life(

I don't get why this is still impossible in 2023, with M1 in both macbooks and ipads.

I'm sure at some point someone at apple has built a prototype and did extensive testing, I'd love to know why was that shut down. And whether it was a business related issue, or a tech/UX related issue.

My guess is that Apple wants companies to reinvent their programs to work well on a touchscreen, which has largely been happening. If you could just drop macos on the ipad, we wouldn't have things like Procreate. You'd just get told to install desktop photoshop and connect a mouse and keyboard.

This seems plausible to me as one of the reasons. Especially in the context of how windows devices favored mixing desktop and touch concepts.

I hope they never do this. Bolting touch into a desktop OS is too much of a compromise for me. It didn't work well in Windows 8 and I don't think it would in macOS.

This is a silly thing to say. macOS is specifically designed for use with a mouse and keyboard. iOS is specifically designed for use with a touch screen.

Adapting either one to work with the other would only make it worse.

Apple sells a magic keyboard for the iPad pro which also has a touchpad. The hardware is not the problem.

Other ridiculous things: The "Apple Magic Keyboard Folio" for the 10th gen iPad has a better keyboard than the iPad Pro.

I so thought you were going to say better keyboard than a 2017 MacBookPro

MacOS allows me to run any software I want. It has a terminal, and allows me to run scripts. It has a shared file system and offers true multi-tasking.

You can already run some iOS apps in MacOS. I'd like a single computer where I can switch between mobile / pencil usage and desktop keyboard / mouse usage.

That's exactly what I have with a convertible Chromebook. Super Snappy ChromeOS for web browsing. It can run Android apps, or stream them from my phone. Flip it around and it's a BIG tablet. 15.6" 4k screen. Going back into computer mode I can run full blown Linux, very quickly via Crouton or virtualized slightly less quick with official Crostini. Can also do a lot of the terminal stuff directly in the ChromeOS shell. In either Linux environment I can emulate Windows via QEMU/KVM. It's as fast as native in Crouton, again a bit slower in Crostini. Lightweight,long battery life, charges over USB-C will fast charge my phone and interfaces seamlessly with the phone for tethering that doesn't use hotspot data and doing messages notifications, etc.

I'm interested on getting a chromebook. Is the linux experience really great? Which hardware would you recommend?

Sounds interesting. What model did you get? Does it have a stylus?

No... I use an iPad with Magic Keyboard case daily.

It works pretty well for things designed for keyboard and pointing device -- one of my main uses is to remote in to a Windows machine.

The main problems with this setup aren't inherent... while the track pad is quite good, the keyboard is passable at best (needs function keys and for the frequently used keys to stop semi-dying).

Pretty quickly you start to naturally switch between touching the screen, typing on the keyboard or using the trackpad, depending on what you're doing and what software you're using.

Now my wife laughs at me when I'm using a regular MacBook and try to swipe or tap the screen.

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