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Comment by philistine | Hacker News Reader

They could theoretically, but the thing is the Mac, despite what you read on here, has a ton of legacy libraries that are not used on iOS.

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I think the bigger problem would be that desktop programs aren’t designed with iOS-style suspension and process-killing in mind.

Desktop apps already survive standby, so CPU usage shouldn't be a problem. And if automatically killing Mac apps, to free up memory, isn't an option, they could add a permanent notification which says "Mac App XYZ still consumes a lot of memory, tap here to close." Or they move the offending Mac app from RAM to temporary SSD storage as long as the phone isn't plugged into a monitor.

So what? Compatibility means a big install? The kernel is too stripped down to patch? In what way could "it needs libraries" be a real blocker?

Knowing Apple, they'll never allow a use case where you have to restart your Vision Pro or iPad to get it into Mac mode, most assuredly losing cellular access in the mean time.

Apple is already offering apps that work on all devices on their stores. Look at every single Apple Arcade release as an example. That's their vision; every device has a specific UI, but apps can run on all of them separately.

> Knowing Apple, they'll never allow a use case where you have to restart your Vision Pro or iPad to get it into Mac mode, most assuredly losing cellular access in the mean time.

They likely have enough talented developers to make iOS run Mac apps natively. But I assume they neither want to cannibalize their laptop market nor want to let people circumvent the 30% fee for the iOS App Store, which is not required for Mac software.

> They likely have enough talented developers to make iOS run Mac apps natively

I’m struggling to see this amount of work translate into more sales or a better experience for more than a token number of customers.

Well, it would obviously result in fewer Mac sales. Because people could use their iPhone (or iPad, or Vision Pro) as a Mac. So it would be good for iPhone owners, who don't need to buy a Mac, but bad for Apple.

> it would obviously result in fewer Mac sales

I’m super doubtful it would be that impactful. Also, switching Mac sales to Vision Pro sales probably works well for Apple in the long run.

>90% of actual or potential Mac users likely have an iPhone. If a substantial fraction of them can replace their Mac with the iPhone they already have, the negative impact on the Mac market would be huge.

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