MacBook Neo and how the iPad should be
craigmod.com
craigmod.com
The iPad is meant to be used in touch mode while in your hands generally. If they were brave they'd stop pretending, strip the iPad back to its roots and make it the best touch-first experience they could.
Trying to make iPad+keyboard case a Mac replacement is an exercise in futility. Similar size/weight to a MacBook at that point, and just not as fluid as MacOS. All the Mac-like stuff (keyboard/trackpad/multitasking/keyboard shortcuts) feels bolted on. All the battery/memory management makes it feel a little flakier and less responsive than a Macbook.
1) Consumption device People reading, scrolling, watching videos. Nice on the sofa, in bed, whatever. Also this use case has a lot of older users driven by eyesight issues that make a bigger slightly further screen interface better. Also very intuitive to young children (funny how often this elderly/youth overlap rears its head).
2) Creative (not productivity/coding!) device Artists needing pencil & touch interface for precise tactile writing/drawing/editing
You don’t think a non-artist, non-coder can be productive on an iPad?
Some jobs are heavily writing, reading, email/messaging, meetings, etc. Feel link those people can do quite well with an iPad, no?
Why would I want to touch a computer when I’m at home when I can use my iPad? Computers aren’t relaxing or fun to use.
[citation needed]
With a tablet you get more freedom, not every task needs a real keyboard and sometimes even if it does it's better not attached to the device in wrong orientation.
Of course, you can now multi window in iPadOS but the experience is awful enough that I don’t.
My take is that consumers didn't want this; it was manufacturers trying to "add value" or sell something new. Same as the recent "AI PC" craze.
I will concede, though, that for a regular laptop without 2in1 functionality, I am a little confused at the value proposal. Maybe someone wants a comfortable pinch and zoom experience?
its useless
flexes too much to actually use it
After trying it out roughly every year, Ubuntu finally seems to have fairly transparent touch screen support, and I've given up on Windows. At a comfortable reading distance, with the laptop actually on my lap (as I'm typing now), I can reach out and touch the screen more easily and comfortably than manipulating the trackpad.
Getting good at this didn't happen overnight, and its behavior isn't identical to my Android or Apple tablets.
Precise cursor positioning is hit or miss, but it is with the mouse too. In either case, I usually get as close as I can, and then move the cursor with the arrow keys. Precise mouse work also gives me eyestrain headaches.
I can only do limited programming on the laptop anyway because the screen is too small. It could be that I'm a freak because I fall into the divide in between how people "should" use laptops and tablets. The programmers do think I'm a freak.
I have never bought the argument that there should be one modality of input (or output). I'm basically a keyboard guy, but I use a pointing stick, mouse, trackball, or stylus/touchscreen as appropriate. Some applications benefit from direct contact, others really prefer keyboard input. Further, various disabilities prioritize modalities as well: someone may have serious trouble typing or pointing, and visually-impaired people may prefer voice and speech.
So all these rhapsodies of fingers flying across the keyboard or pointing on a touchscreen as the One True Way miss the point. I want my computing devices to support the kind of interaction I want to engage in, which differs from application to application and time to time.
I bought a 2 in 1 and the experience is much better, simply because i can detach the keyboard and use it as a massive tablet. its not as fluid as an ipad, but most of the time its simply mildly annoying to get to the app/browser i want, then I scroll and tap the same way I would on an Ipad. On my regular touchscreen laptop, I have to lift my fingers to use the interface, which simply adds delay for... the ability to scroll a pdf, afaik.
All this to say simply shoehorning touch on a mac is a pretty bad idea simply because the hardware, in its current iteration, is not there. I wonder if they'll release a "macbook touch" thats more akin to a surface for their touch interface.
I have a work Lenovo Yoga and have a similar experience with the 2-in-1. I actually appreciate that I can fold the keyboard all the way back under and use it as a tablet. I'll sometimes use that for doing document reviews on the couch. I've also used it folded, hmmm, 290 degrees or so as a touch interface for some monitoring software. Windows seems to have some APIs that will report to applications when it switches into tablet mode and applications that auto-switch their UI to have bigger buttons etc are quite appreciated.
I suggest that you watch people in cafes, offices, and libraries (especially young people) use Windows-based touchscreen-equipped laptops. There's nothing that "sucks" or is "useless" about having the additional option of a touch interface on a laptop.
You don't even have to use it! There is zero downside to having a touch input on a laptop. As a component it has essentially invisible cost or negative tradeoff in any way. You still have a keyboard and mouse. It is helpful to have for little things. Examples below:
- Resizing photos with pinch zoom
- Scrolling smoothly through PDFs
- Hitting OK on a dialog box
- Making a digital signature
- Hell, macOS runs a good amount of iPhone and iPad apps that were designed for a touch screen, so we could add "using iOS apps" to the list.
- Using handwriting to take notes...much nicer to be able to draw diagrams versus being limited to text only (in a 2-in-1 form factor on a device with pen support)
Apple just hasn't made the 2-in-1 device format that a very large percentage of Windows laptops are sold with, the kind with a folding hinge. Perhaps this is because they have had Tim Cook's operations mindset so long. They don't really care that it's a device that 1/3 of users will enjoy. They couldn't even keep selling the iPhone mini even though a device that sells 5% of the iPhone's volume is still an incredibly successful device. They just want to make as few SKUs as possible to maintain profit margins, not to deliver innovative tech that at least some customers want and enjoy.
Did they do it when Apple offered the touch bar? Or did annoying nerds complain so much that Apple finally removed this pretty cool feature?
Anybody who thinks about it for a few minutes will realize that any touch interface on a laptop has to be on the bottom part and not on the screen to be great. The touch bar was an attempt, and could have been very useful. Maybe having the entire keyboard be a touch interface could be something, like BlackBerry did?
I think it is quite clear that touchscreen laptops are a desired product. Apple would just rather you buy both an iPad and a Mac as separate devices so they can double-dip.
If this style of touchscreen is bad as you say you have to explain why Apple sells keyboards that turn the iPad into a laptop with a touch screen: https://www.apple.com/shop/product/mwr53ll/a/magic-keyboard-...
2-in-1 revenue, 2024: USD 58.2 billion
Apple Mac segment revenue: USD 29.4 billion
[PDF] https://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/fy2024-q4/FY24_Q4_Consol...
"Let's all laugh at an industry that never learns anything tee hee hee." -- Yahtzee Crowshaw
We figured out that light pens were an abomination for ergonomics back in the 1980s.
MacOS can basically do this already, running iOS software on Macs. It's just a matter of choosing to unlock the potential of modern iPad hardware, putting the same OS on iPads and Macbooks. Full software compatibility. iPads that can be more than locked-down toys.
But would Apple ever give up the control and App Store revenue that locked-down devices provide?
I find it particularly frustrating to watch, because she has an account on the weeks-old MBP I just bought (which will connect to a 27" monitor). But instead she'd rather just keep poking at that iPad screen while she complains about how hard it is to use: "I just don't get along with this Mac stuff." This woman worked at Microsoft for over fifteen years, she's not technically illiterate, but apparently it's easier to work with a horrible setup than to walk 20 feet down the hallway and put her finger on the fingerprint reader. :eyeroll:
The author wants using the iPad to “feel like a finger ballet, your hands swooping and swiping”, but also the author seems to care a lot about emails and Claude Code and writing. Those are fundamentally at odds, and it makes complete sense that they’re very happy with a MacBook Neo instead (but they could have just been using a MacBook Air the whole time).
The iPad is fantastic for, as the author points out, “reading the news and watching YouTube and playing games”, and it’s an amazing tool for digital artists and anyone who does lots of hand annotation work. So really overall a product that’s found its niche, and when I see grandpas and grandmas and students at my local cafe using their iPad their hands are effectively swooping and swiping in a finger ballet.
I think there’s just a kind of techie who desperately wishes they could do everything on an iPad, but really the machine meant for them is a lightweight MacBook (Neo or Air), and for some reason that induces some sort of frustration in them and they feel like things somehow shouldn’t be that way. I guess I get it, the iPad hardware is pretty slick. But yeah, your work makes you a MacBook person, not an iPad person, that’s just how it is. (Apple should make an 11” MacBook again though).
> iPad apps should be weird as hell, unlike anything you find on a desktop operating system […] The iPad should be a highly-focused touch playground. Weird as hell, one-of-a-kind apps
I don’t know what this obsession with “weird apps” is, but 99.9% of people don’t care about “weird apps” and so that’s not enough to justify a whole device category (and you can find weird apps on all platforms anyways).
> I think there’s just a kind of techie who desperately wishes they could do everything on an iPad, but really the machine meant for them is a lightweight MacBook (Neo or Air)
Couldn't agree more. I am that person. I spent months deliberating before buying an 11" iPad (with keyboard). Used it for a week for the novelty. But the keyboard, trackpad, and multi-tasking is so janky compared to my Mac that it's sat in a cupboard ever since.
The MacBook Air is so quick and light that it's always just as convenient to get the MacBook out instead.
And that's not even for 'techie' tasks. Basic note-taking, researching, and simple spreadsheets are all easier on the Mac. The only time I reach for the iPad is if I want to watch a video and my girlfriend is already using the TV.
That being said, the iPad mini is a perfect companion if you do want an iPad but already have a decent MacBook. Such a great form-factor and doesn't pretend to be a laptop replacement.
It always ends up playing videos or the kids playing some silly game.
For things like drawing (Procreate and co), editing images and even videos on the go, using it with a MIDI keyboard and AU plugins for gigs, reading ebooks, watching a movie in bed, etc its way better than both the Mac and the iPhone.
Paired with a BT keyboard, for niche stuff like focus writing apps (closer to fancy typewriter with no distractions than a full laptop or phone) it's also great.
so it's mostly a desk weight now. besides pencil input, there isn't anything i'd do on it that i wouldn't prefer doing on my laptop. i absolutely can't stand typing on ipads.
In all cases, I used them 2-3 times and then never touched them again. Obviously some people love them. My mom loves and uses hers. I edit text too much and the select, copy and paste on touch screens is attrocious even today.
Indeed - and given LLM's have made the 'command line' great again and voice isn't appropriate in every scenario ( far too public ), hard to see how text input isn't critical.
The two machines solve totally different problems. I never bothered to get the keyboard for the ipad - because typing is something i do on the macbook air. The ipad is incredible for reading pdfs that are meant to be letter/a4 sized.
I think if the hardware differences really mattered Sidecar wouldn't exist, Mac wouldn't run iOS apps, iPhone wouldn't stream to Mac, and the AVP wouldn't stream/run apps from both platforms.
Would those devices be better if their software was strictly siloed from each other?
Yes, yes they would. You would get software actually designed to fully exploit the capabilities of the device. And not, for example, shitty lazy port of mobile apps to MacOS
Or you would just have a void where that hypothetical software could be, and this is what actually happened to the iPad (and AVP).
Compared to a hypothetical scenario where developers care to build iPad apps? No.
I don't think the availability of iPhone apps on iPad is what derailed development of iPad apps either, practically all the ROI building software for Apple hardware comes from impulse spending on the iPhone and even with 500+ million iPads in circulation today it doesn't come close.
Multi-tasking? Half-assed. Keyboard and mouse support? Half-assed. OS capabilities beyond iOS on a laptop-like device? Non-existent. This was additionally hamstrung by "just check a checkbox, and a half-assed port of your app will run on iPad".
We've now seen the same play out with MacOS: why bother creating an actual app when you can just run a mobile app? Even Apple's first-party apps do this now.
Works fine with gestural input a.k.a. the old Graffiti format, originally from Palm.
The stylus has a finer point-resolution than a finger, making for more effective touch actions.
I do miss my old PalmOS devices....
Graffiti is not possible without a stylus, or at the very least is vastly less effective.
Android and iOS are both "finger first" interfaces. You can use a stylus, but you don't have to. And everything is designed around finger-fatness. Icons, gestures, on-screen keyboard.
Finger input is more convenient, for very casual use. Stylus suffers from both loss of the stylus itself (particularly when these are integrated into storage on the device itself), and inconsistent sizing of styli, even by the same manufacturer and nominal device model and version.
For the latter, Motorola's Stylus Android phones retain the same model and version number while the stylus dimensions change sufficiently to make them incompatible. This may induce a certain level of frustration....
1. Make it powerful enough so that it can be sold as equivalent to macOS
2. Keep it locked like iOS, to be sold as secure alternative to computer for your parents and kids (which rules out all the workflow customization pros need)
3. Don’t make it powerful enough for people to stop buying Macs (Tim Cook’s biggest fear is of you not buying another slab of glass - no multiprofile for you, ever)
The intersection of these is an empty set.
I use my 2018 Pro as a great browser and YouTube machine, with zero intent to upgrade until the above situation changes. It’s useless for anything else, and even if I got M4 powerhouse, I wouldn’t be able to take it as a single machine for holiday for emergency Weathergraph hotfix or server debugging.
Totally doable for travel debugging.
Technically totally doable, just give me a VS Code + local Linux container (Apple Silicon is great at virtualization) to which it can tunnel.
In practice, impossible with Apple's limitations.
I daily drive VS Code remote SSH and had a (honestly inexplicable) thing for Chromebooks for a while. Before the included Linux environment let me install "real" VS Code, these options worked well for me.
In which case they already failed because I still see no reason to replace my M1 iPad Pro, it just powers through anything I throw at it including games.
Only allow “Mac mode” if you have a keyboard and monitor attached. Hell, automatically “sleep” it if you undock. Make it unapologetically keyboard-and-mouse first.
One UI for keyboard/mouse. A second UI for touch. One device that can do it all. That’s the dream.
I feel like we’ve had a few ham fisted attempts over the years at this, and Apple could actually pull it off. I get that it probably won’t happen though.
A desktop mode was recently added for base Android tho. And you could always mod your Android device to open termux when you connected an external monitor, that sort of thing.
Mouse interfaces can be incredibly information dense because mice are both incredibly economic from a space and motion standpoint, and also somehow incredibly precise. You can flick your wrist to select any target the size of a grain of rice on a 32" screen. Touch interfaces require larger targets because fingertips are larger than a cursor point, and also require smaller screens because your arm now has to move the entire length of the screen, which is slow and tiring.
Where touchscreens excel is tactile experiences, things that mice cannot replicate. Multi-touch, pressure sensitivity, pen angle. Sweeping motions are difficult to control with a mouse. Manipulating multiple analog controls is nigh-impossible with a mouse.
When an app tries to accommodate both input styles, it inevitably ends up catering to one style or the other, unless two separate interfaces are built. And because a touchscreen laptop can be touched or have the mouse moved at any given time, it's not really possible to switch between the two input styles seamlessly.
I would really enjoy having a device that is capable of both, since the iPad has a gorgeous screen, a great form factor, and a lot of killer uses. But it can't cannibalize mouse interfaces or we wind up with the direction that MacOS is going.
There is nothing wrong with having a keyboard connected to a touch device per se, but the gross arm motion required to move between the touchscreen and the keyboard, and the awkward angle the keyboard puts the touchscreen at sort of nukes the usefulness of the touchscreen. And again, jumping in text is the sort of small target action that mice excel at.
This is a very strange conclusion considering everything is a webpage/webapp nowadays which are designed to be operated by big fat fingers.
/s but...
There's exactly one feature of touch interfaces that can be incredibly input-information dense, easily rivaling the mouse, and that's swiping gestures with 1-to-1 fluid animation for feedback. Usually seen with pie menus and the like. Drag and drop, the mouse equivalent, is extremely clunky - and mouse gestures that don't even involve clicking even more so.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking that having touch means you only use touch. Same for a mouse/trackpad pointer. Each has strengths and weaknesses and it better at some tasks than others. The pointer is good for clicking on small UI elements or doing small movements. It suffers with larger movements across the screen. Touch is good for scrolling, zooming, tapping buttons, tabs, and sometimes links. It’s good for jumping around the screen and moving things.
The keyboard is a third input/control interface and can be even faster and more precise than the mouse pointer. When the mouse first came on the scene, people derided it as less efficient than a keyboard and complained that you had to move your fingers away from the keyboard to use one. They swore they would never use one.
Where these work best is a mix of input modes using different ones for different scenarios. Having a mix if broad and precise inputs means you don’t need to tailor the whole interface for just precision or just broad strokes. The interface can be designed to accommodate the presentation of information and let the choice of inputs be up to the user. A side benefit of having difference input modes is that your hands move in different ways for each. You are less subject to repetitive stress from doing the same hand motion for everything.
But I do agree with the original point that everyone has failed to make a unified interface for both modes and a distinct switch would be better until they can converge from real world learned lessons.
Apple will never make a product like that though.
Different horses for different courses.
iPhones need desktop mode. Your apps, your data. USB-C screen + Bluetooth keyboard/mouse. Running like iPadOS or even macOS.
I still dream of the day when my computer lives on my wrist, and I just have a few dummy screens in different formats that can connect to it so I can consume media or be productive.
the thing that annoys me is that pretty much everybody in the industry with a decent amount of understanding has known for more than a decade this was absolutely feasible.
and the most infuriating this is that i know for a fact it's not being done purely for a matter of product fragmentation.
the macbook neo is living proof that we could give people a single device (iphone 17 pro/pro max) and have that do pretty much everything. get in the office, hook your phone to a display via usb-c, start working. unplug your phone (which now is fully charged) and go home.
we could have dumb laptop-shaped terminals where we plug our phones, and get a larger display and a keyboard. or tablet-shaped "terminals". or desktop docks at home.
how cool would it be to leave for the office with just your company phone in your pocket ?
but we wouldn't need three separate devices: an iphone, an ipad and a macbook.
something similar would likely also apply to the android world, if android os developers could get their shit together and get a decent implementation working (android occasionally re-launches this, and it usually sucks again).
The 2011 Motorola Atrix came with a proprietary dock to connect to. Modern desktop environments can use the USB-C 3.2 DP ports on the phone to provide video out. Lapdock shells are widely available online.
MS employees have access to a lot of your work/data/fingerprints which makes it insecure by default. There is also serious privacy concerns, basic one would be that telemetry sends all HWID of devices by default, so if you share a USB stick with a friend, you two are automatically correlated in MS database, not really my cup of tea.
Not a big fan of an OS asking for an ID indirectly (via mandatory phone number) as well, mandatory MS account at install time (except if you tamper with the ISO, yeah sure)
Most banks on the planet manage trillions on Windows, so I'm not sure what you're trying to prove by dying on this hill. Just because you wouldn't do something doesn't make you knowledgeable or right about that.
>MS employees have access to a lot of your work/data/fingerprints.
I wonder how all those companies, banks and governments manage to keep MS workers out of their work data.
Any MS workers here that can answer what are you guys doing with all that customer data you look at all day instead of coding?
Do you really believe it's normal that banks are on Windows? Do you want governments, military and such to be on Windows, really? It's not a popularity contest, we know that most corpos do terrible choice about IT stuff (at least back then and now they are doomed).
It breach basic every security principles, we should be relying on cryptography and not human trust? Would you let your ISP inject a CA in your OS and just rely on the trust of their employees to not look at your traffic? you're building your security model on the assumption that a private corporation's employees won't abuse access they structurally have, you rely on faith which imo is plain wrong. But even, the privacy factor has not been addressed, you are alright with MS correlating your entire life, many wouldn't accept that.
Can you post a source for this? I'm sure every newspaper on the planet would love to publish headlines reading "MS workers are stealing your data", but that would require some actual proof, not made up FUD.
>Do you really believe it's normal that banks are on Windows?
It doesn't matter what I believe, what matters are the facts and reality on the street which is what I'm arguing. You are free to believe whatever you want, that doesn't make you right.
Let me ask you something and make an hypothetical and you must reply in good faith, this is because we don't agree on fundamental points on security:
If you were a wanted criminal that still needs to work online somehow to make money, would you feel safe using Windows?
I think we can agree that privacy and security are heavily intertwined. If your honest answer is no,then that alone tells you something about the OS trust model. And if your answer is "yes", then i'd genuinely like to hear why, because I can't think of a single compelling reason.
I first want to see sources hat back up your claims. Otherwise how can we know you're arguing in good faith and not stringing us along with more FUD and tinfoil conspiracies.
Can you explain what mechanism is there for Microsoft workers to steal data off my Windows PC that doesn't upload anything to OneDrive? Like I'm genuienly curious - how do they do it?
And about pure "data" as in filenames file content and such, then obviously typical Windows Defender, Smartscreen and such that would send file hashes, sometimes content, filenames, mod time and such, making Microsoft directly aware of your filesystem content.
[0] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/defender-endpoint/cloud-pr...
Also, I said "and such" because MS have many mechanisms, for example, they are directly aware of what you download because of SmartScreen, this is data, isn't it?
One more thing, when you type something to search in the Start menu, this is also sent to Microsoft, so for example if you have the habit of searching `XXXFilename`, then this Filename is stored on their servers, this is data. You can disable that by registry sure, but let's be real, users don't disable it.
But keep in mind here we are talking about what's referenced in documentation, while there is so many things that are obscure about it.
You might want to read this article (even tho it's basic): https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/08/windows-10-microsoft-b...
Windows 10 collects unprecedented data, including:
Location data
Text, voice, and touch input
Web pages visited
App usage (which programs, how long) (beware of CLI flags, they are leaked to MS:))
Unique device IDs *(that can't be changed, which mean when you go to your friend, plug YOUR mouse to his Windows computer, then MS knows you 2 are besties)*
Another example, when you dev, you know that you might have a tendency to install tools, or even install your own output binaries right (let say you build an Electron app), then MS is aware of this, all programs installed are sent, this is data. So, does the MS employees filtering those data can see if you are actively using a Monero wallet? Yes they can. Are you a Tor user? They know immediately (regardless of VPN usage) and so on. This is real data.
Most people enable much more features from MS which then gives away so much more data, the list I gave is only if you disable most of it.
And lastly, about Visual Studio particularly: What's Collected:
- Extension list Every extension you have installed
- Project types What kind of projects you create (web, mobile, desktop, etc.)
- Feature usage Which VS features you use and how often
- Build data Build times, success/failure rates, errors
- Debugger usage Breakpoints hit, debug sessions, time spent debugging
- Search queries What you search for in VS (help, docs, IntelliSense)
- Crash/hang data When VS freezes or crashes, what you were doing
- Performance data Memory usage, responsiveness, load times
- Environment info OS version, hardware specs, screen resolution
- File paths Project folder paths (not file contents)
- Session duration How long you use VS
- Click/interaction events Which menus, buttons, toolbars you interact with
===
Then obviously there is MS Edge but that's a whole beast on its own with next level telemetry (whole history, including admin panels you connect to).
=== What's the definition of data?
Going back to your original comment about not using Windows for "serious" work - none of the above stands in the way of serious work, especially given that every above behaviour is disabled by enterprise policy. I will agree with you that personal installations are different, but then we need to agree on the definition of serious work again.
For serious work, my philosophy is really regarding the attack surface, I'm mostly working in cybersec/privacy for the last decade and any data that leaves the machine is always a concern, a theoretical one and a practical one, especially if it's obfuscated. Anything that requires human trust to me is a concern (see for example lately the vulnerabilities steaming from npm dependencies, all about human). Privacy is important to me, I don't want anyone to know what I do with my devices (that includes my phones, which has no SIM inside to reduce correlation factor), this is by principle. I have 2 "realms" of work, one where I do accept (example with prompts to commercial LLM providers such as OpenAI...) that privacy and security is compromised, and the other realm where it's non-negotiable.
But I get your point and without being too extreme about it, I can agree that some of my takes are far fetch although they are valid, can I ask why you actually prefer to develop on Windows vs Linux (or MacOS), is it because of habits?
The part about Procreate is really spot on. If you draw on the iPad, and I do, Procreate just dissolves under your fingers and pencil. It's like working with paper and pencil. Almost. And it has Undo. Tactile feedback would be nice, but I'm not sure what that means. Paper and pencil has great tactile feedback. Trying to describe it with words is an exercise in frustration. If you don't draw, or write with a pen, ever, then I'm at a loss to explain it.
But it's there nonetheless.
We've got a long way to go to really understand UI and UX. A long, long way.
Now, please excuse me while I go and tap dance about architecture for a bit...
Modern Mac trackpads don’t really click, they vibrate upon sensing a certain amount of force, and the sensory illusion is good enough to be indistinguishable from the real thing.
I’m only suggesting this tongue-in-cheek, but perhaps there’ll come a time when the Apple Pencil can micro-vibrate in such a way that is so convincing it will make you feel as if you’re dragging it on paper with configurable roughness.
I can try:
There's variation, paper to paper, pen to pen, pencil to pencil, they each present slightly differently. Write with a ballpoint on some receipt paper, then write with a fountain pen on some smooth, low absorbancy paper, then whip out one of those green engineering notebooks with a mechanical pencil.
For each task with a physical writing utensil and paper, you get a distinct experience that connects you physically to the task.
Once actually writing, there's a sense of finality, even the erasable pencil leaves a mark. Your movements have consequence.
Then there's the persistence. A piece of paper doesn't timeout to the lock screen. It's there, all the time, using zero energy to continue to exist. You can prop it up on your desk and forget about it until you need to reference it. If you're constantly going between two pages, you can lay them side-by-side without reducing their size.
I've always found writing/drawing on a tablet to be frustrating. It feels like I'm looking down at a notebook through a toilet paper tube, like I can never see the full picture. I used a wacom tablet with a chromebook and Xournal for years to take class notes. Something about disconnecting the stylus from the screen fixed those frustrations for me, like it took the expectations of paper away and provided the expectations of a pointing device.
I would still use macbook for most things but I did use my surface go more often for (deep) work than now my ipad pro (which is better for consumption).
Surface Go in app mode was not as good as ipad and many apps lacking but it shined if I had to to more work/research and I didn't have laptop with me.
I would just love to have something like even smaller size Macbook Neo where I can unplug screen and then would behave like iPad consumption device.
Right now I hate keeping everything synced in apple ecosystem so I usually even won't bother to use ipad while in train or plane.
It's frustating knowing that the ipad _could_ run mac os but won't due to intentional market segmentation by Apple.
I have a Surface Book now, that I put Linux on for a while (bad idea, super flaky with Surface Linux). I'd probably recommend the Surface Pro again over the Surface Book, and just put up with Windows (ugh x2). Using the AtlasOS variant at least, so less crappy compared to stock Windows.
I imagine the surface go 4 with an n200 is probably a good bit better but several times the price; assuming it can run Linux
I do wish Apple would make an 11” Mac just so people would stop complaining about the iPad lol.
I like my MBA, but it could be shrunk. Without the wedge it’s much more easier, too.
Would the iPad still be that days long, cohesive device is another story.. it Apple cannot have their cake and eat it too.
They ban apps from downloading and executing code except for educational purposes - in fact very recently this has manifested in banning apps that use AI to build and publish apps - but it has always prevented VSCode and the like, at best you can have something SSH'd into something else. This also affects software that is extendable through plugins and addons.
The console approach to software distribution is good for developers and in this case leads to better software for consumers.
Your comment summarizes the people's inability to appreciate the iPad on its own terms. "You can't run Pro Tools!" is such a silly complaint. Moog, Waldorf, Arturia, Roland, Akai, Eventide, etc etc etc they are all on the App Store and work very well by touch. There are of course a ton of indie apps as well. No, they may not be as "powerful" as some of the ones you mentioned but they are designed to work in a different way than the computer plugins do. And they are priced much much cheaper. Use a computer for computer workflows, use the iPad for things that it does better.
> Use a computer for computer workflows, use the iPad for things that it does better.
The iPad is a computer. I could be using the iPad for both but Apple won't let me, so now I have another cruddy MIDI controller that doesn't run Bitwig.
Again, your inability to appreciate how the iPad is different and offers a different way of working in no way invalidates what has been created. The combination of a touch first interface and console software distribution has created a unique system. Why people want the iPad to be a Mac or an Android tablet is beyond me.
My favourite was a “pie” launcher that would spawn wherever pressed in an anime/minority report futurism style. It was incredibly easy to use.
But, instead everyone settled on the rows or icons launchers and widgets. Very boring.
I feel like iPadOS could have tried to push the envelope a bit but they wanted mass market appeal, and nothing is simpler than pushing a big icon I guess. :shrug:
Nowadays, I don’t know all the gestures and things you can do on an iPad despite watching every Apple Keynote.
(1) The (11-inch) size is fantastic: you get enough screen real estate to see what you’re reading and writing, but it still fits into an arbitrarily small bag and is light enough that you can comfortably walk around all day with it. The death of the original tiny MacBook Air was a huge fail for apple
(2) CELLULAR CONNECTIVITY FOR GOD’S SAKE CELLULAR CONNECTIVITY. Yes, you can always hotspot your phone, however, that’s still not nearly so reliable as a device with its own connectivity, some providers still limit bandwidth there, plus the last thing I need is extra battery drain on my phone when I’m already stressed about it.
TBF, if Apple ever brought back the original MacBook Air with modern specs and with a cellular chip, I would just take gigantic buckets full of money and throw them in the general direction of Cupertino until I got one, like, instantly. And there are definitely still compromises—-as an academic, I’ve been meaning to just write a command line front end to zotero and fling it onto a digital ocean server or something, because its iPad app is so godawful. But on the whole, I still reach for my iPad much much much more than my MacBook, for those two killer features.
One of these days I'm going to buy one of those old MS Surfaces with cellular and stick Linux on it. But for the installation/drivers hassles I'd have already done so.
iPads offer $2/GB prepaid US data via eSIM.
I like that. My recent tools are mostly AI first, and therefore CLI first. I’ve been toying with adding JSON modes to them, and this is undeniably useful, but I think I’ll keep JSON under flags; it’s a way to prioritize human users as well.
LLMs excel at text, text is incredibly powerful in a cli environment.
It's not just that there's no GUI alternative, it's that the GUI itself is a bad affordance.
The only GUIs that even sort of successfully play in this space solve it by having a GUI that basically just embeds a CLI (see - all the vscode editors, antigravity, etc..).
For one thing, a base iPad is US$349. Sure you need a keyboard too but it is less than $599. And the core of the Macbook Neo is a previous generation iPhone chip whereas the latest iPad has an M14.
If anything, a better melding of these product lines looka a lot more like the Huawei Mate Book Fold [1].
My biggest issue with Apple's current lineup is actually Face ID. I dearly love my iPad Air because it's about the last Apple device I own that still uses Touch ID.
Nobody will change my mind about Face ID. It's terrible. I'm fine if others want to use it. But please just put Touch ID on the button like the iPad Air on every device, particularly the iPhone.
Face ID terrible for visually impaired people who have to look closer at the screen. This is a common cause for Face ID failures where you have to move the device away from your face for it to work. And you rack up false posiitves this way. Apple is way too zealous with how many false negatives force a passcode entry. I know in the Touch ID entry I barely have to use my passcode. With my current iPhone I have to use it many times a day.
And then Face ID just fails all the time in low light conditions such that you have to light up your face with an external light to make it work. The iPad's screen light by itself isn't enough.
So much for "seamless".
So if you solved this problem there's no real reason to separate the iPad Pro and iPad Air lines.
I've managed to unlock my iPhone in a pitch-dark bedroom just fine, for many years now.
It uses infrared dots, not visible light, unlike some of the Android implementations.
I’m not sure why you are having to much problem with FaceID. Low light shouldn’t matter as it doesn’t use ambient light to “see” your face. It has an infrared emitter that shines a pattern on your face and that is what the sensor picks up.
Everything about using that app was about trying to make you feel like you could reach out and touch the screen. Now you can. Its user interface was nonsenical at the time. Now a spherical marble is sensible. Tap an object, then tap and hold; use other hand to operate the three-axis arrow control bar that swells up out of the interface into easy to touch controls. When you let go, they pop with a little spray of tri-color paint and a few speckles get left on the user interface.
Seriously, we have done almost nothing with what’s possible because everything is either Word, Letterpress, Tabletop Simulator, or cross-platform port. Meanwhile there’s an engine in there powerful enough to run Bryce with realtime rendering, but everyone wants to emulate a sheet of paper rather than letting me do the most basic things.
We could have painting with a pen and controlling z-depth with a hand at the same time. Path snap to collision avoidance margins on a slider. Negative margins and a setting to define collision handling: do you materials simulate two oils colliding at their spline velocity? Do they intersperse and blend like translucent colored sand? How far after the intersection does the aftertint continue in the brush stream?
Instead, we have, courtesy of AI, U-turned the industry all the way back to text adventure games with sentient potatoes.
Sigh.
Sure, get rid of the Magic Keyboard with its unnecessary trackpad. But bring back the Smart Keyboard Folio. It was a delight.
Speaking from in-person experience only: I do see a few niche cases where people have used them professionally with success (a tattoo artist friend, a builder (frames houses)). I also played in a band that used multitracks on an iPad. This is the minority use cases for it.
The largest deployment I see for iPads is simply POS terminals. They're over-engineered for this purpose, and likely won't have software updates long enough for the lifespan of POS terminals the likes of WalMart however.
The second largest deployment I see is expensive entertainment devices for kids. They're given to them to keep them busy.
Netbooks were valuable years ago. It's a great paradigm. Apple initially had the Air to grab this market segment, but slowly drifted the Air into an expensive premium product.
The success of the Neo shows consumer demand is very strong in the segment.
I find the combo of keyboard, pointer, touch, and pencil interfaces very useful.
The touch interface is even useful sometimes when remoted in to a desktop.
The biggest thing wrong with ipads (and the reason I’ll probably never upgrade this old 2018 model) is the lack of macos.
I keep wanting to buy an iPad, but I create more than I consume, and it's a pointless device for creators (except maybe for drawing/illustration). I have no idea why someone would want a touchscreen and iOS on a Macbook Neo. If you're trying to do something other than passively consume content, a Macbook Neo is a better device than an iPad and does not need a touchscreen.
- Read and write e-mails
- Read and write documents
- Do their banking
- Connect with friends through social media
- Look up a recipe or find gardening information
- Book hotels, book flights, book restaurants.
- Check maps.
That's hundreds of millions of customers.
It's been a long-term goal of Apple for the iPad to eclipse and replace the Mac, in the same way the Mac eclipsed and replaced the Apple ][. Or the Lisa[0]. In fact, I would not be surprised if it turned out a driving goal of the Apple Silicon transition was just to make the Mac more like an iPad so that they'd consume less engineering resources to release.
That, of course, backfired, because Apple suddenly started releasing actually compelling laptops again. Oops! But the original design intent is clear: the Mac is a legacy platform. I mean, app developers don't even pay 30% on it. Apple doesn't design platforms like macOS anymore, due to a combination of toxic max-security[1] and not wanting to be embarrassed by third-parties out-innovating them on their own turf.
This is where I start to disagree with the author, though. The clear separation between mouse software and finger software was a mandate from Steve Jobs intended primarily to force developers to make apps that are finger-friendly. But nothing prohibits you from writing software that respects both modes of input. Furthermore, the only clear path for the iPad is for it to become more like a Mac.
The problem is that Apple also wants to obfuscate the issue by pretending like the capability gap has been met with better windowing. The real problem are all the things Apple considers non-negotiable: i.e. there are going to be apps that will never fit into Apple's sandboxing restrictions, and apps whose economies of production do not afford handing off 30% of revenues in commission to Apple. Whether or not those apps happen to let you plug in a keyboard and mouse into a tablet is a different question.
But at the same time, of course the tablet should support a mouse if you plug it in, and of course if I plug in a touchscreen into a laptop that should work too.
[0] TBH, you develop apps for the iPad in the same way early Mac apps were developed on a Lisa.
[1] I am stealing this term from tom7.
Pretty sure there are students at Uni using iPads with keyboard. It's smaller form factor than a laptop.
And just barely smaller than netbooks.
That said, I guess to everyone born after 2000 a PC is considered kaputt if it does not have touch input.
Even my 1994 gf tries to touch every display to see if it is directly usable, or needs an obscure pointer to be moved and click to be found either on keys or tap or press.
> Instead, go into a three year period of major OS refactoring. Speed above all.
I cannot understand why a slow mac is acceptable at any level at all. The icons need a second to load in the applications drawer! Jobs would have thrown this thing across the room at the first MVP demo
Like a product I wouldn't touch with a bargepole.
Apple is essentially selling the modern version of the eMac, and I would say the Neo is almost as bad of a purchase as that product. The real selling point of the device is that it's newly in box with a warranty. If you actually go to the used market, it's easy to find a gently used machine that is much better. Any MacBook Air with an M2 and 16GB of RAM is a better purchase.
The Neo situation is the equivalent of buying a brand new $500 Acer machine versus buying a $500 eBay ThinkPad T14 or something like that. You'll get a much better laptop by buying a used laptop versus buying that brand new Acer.
The same story goes for the MacBook Neo. It'll be successful in sales, and it's a nice machine in a lot of ways, but it's one of the most overhyped devices of our present times.
It will go down in history as a device like the iPhone 5C. Save a few bucks now, but pay for it in the near future with the kind of performance you're actually getting from it. Even basic casual tasks will chug in the very near future.
Apple is selling a device that is approximately equivalent to the $1000 laptop they were selling 5 years ago and we are acting like this is a revolutionary product. And, by the way, it's not a $500 product unless you can use the education store. It's actually $600, or $700 if you are buying a configuration that actually makes some level of sense and has enough storage. $700 will buy you a 16GB/512GB MacBook Air M2, a much better machine (better screen, battery, speakers, processor, keyboard, trackpad, I/O, etc).
A huge percentage of the population (at least in the US) is completely unwilling to buy any used consumer products. For some it is the ick factor, for others it is fear of being scammed.
> Any MacBook Air with an M2 and 16GB of RAM is a better purchase.
Is this really a better alternative if it stops getting macOS updates several years sooner? I wouldn’t buy an 8gb laptop, but they are fine for many use cases.
Going back to the iPhone 5C example, that phone lost updates much earlier than the 5S released the same year because it didn’t support 64-bit processors.
There are also a number of Intel and PowerPC systems that weren’t supported long due to architecture transitions.
I could very easily imagine a future version of macOS only being available on systems that shipped with 16GB of RAM.
Although on the other hand, I think Apple decides on support based on userbase as well. I imagine if they find a device is barely used or don’t sell well in the first place they would perhaps be more likely to drop support.
The same applies to the iPad. It is fine the way it is if I personally wanted a laptop, I would’ve bought one but my preference is a desktop computer.
I don’t sit around wishing every laptop computer was a desktop computer nor do I want an iPad to be a laptop or even a desktop computer it is what it is had purchase, if you don’t like it just buy what you want, the Neo appears to be a hit, so it appears that Apple knows what they’re doing again.
Let me do that w/ a MacBook Neo and iPad Air pair which look as if they belong together and which fit nicely into a bag and afford me the option of taking only the iPad Air and Apple Pencil when I want to travel light, and maybe I'll come back to the fold (the last thing I bought from Apple was Mac OS X Public Beta, before that it was OpenSTEP 4.2, and the last thing Apple made which I truly liked wholeheartedly was Snow Leopard).
Oh yeah, make the Apple Pencil work on an iPhone....
Instead, these days, I have a Samsung Galaxy Note 10+, Book 3 Pro 360 (two of them, panic-bought a spare when I though the line was being discontinued, it's now up to a Book 5), Kindle Scribe Colorsoft (replacing a first-gen unit) and a Wacom One display connected to a MacBook (purchased by an employer) and more Wacom styluses than I can easily count....
The high watermark of my graphical computing experience was using an NCR-3125 running Go Corp.'s PenPoint w/ FutureWave SmartSketch when mobile, and a NeXT Cube w/ a Wacom ArtZ --- I've tried pretty much every thing in-between since, but when things were finally getting better, Microsoft did Fall Creator's Update and everything came crashing down....
I'd really like for Apple to make a device trifecta which I would actually be willing to buy.
We trained billions of humans to touch the screen.
If you replace an iPad you bought for $350 a year ago with a $600 surface, it will be a markedly worse experience as a tablet. Nothing has yet combined the two without comprimise - you either get a device which is a bad laptop and a good tablet, or a bad tablet and a good laptop.
Still, I rather have the compromise in Windows, and Android DEX land, than carrying two devices, with Apple margins.
Microsoft Store: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/devices/surface-lapt... - $1,149
Apple Links: https://www.apple.com/macbook-neo/ - $599 https://www.apple.com/ipad-11/ - $349
I'm sure there are much cheaper places you can get a surface - but comparing MSRP to MSRP for the new models is a much plainer comparison, particularly as it's often difficult to see if you are looking at an older model with Windows PCs.
Neo is a robbery for a 8 GB device, especially in Europe.
Besides you missed the part of carrying multiple devices.
Just looking at 8gb doesn't tell you the whole picture - that's like just looking at how many litres a cars engine is as the only part of determining if a car is good or not.
And if I want to go with 256 SSD, which is a ridiculous SSD size also in 2026, my Thinkpad had it back in 2014, it is still 700 euros.
As for the Apple distortion field regarding its high quality, unfortunately many people do tend to discover why paying, even extra on top of those 800 euros, for Apple Care matters.
For me it’s not about the numbers It’s 800€ for a laptop that’s not total junk. I could probably get the same 8 or 16 and 512 numbers in cheaper laptops, but they would be [what I would consider] sad annoying plastic junk.
800 euros plus Apple Care, for 8 GB, 512 SSD, a phone SOC and Tahoe bugs, no thanks.
Trackpad of a 16 inch MacBook Pro is humongous anyways.
Add a touchscreen display to the trackpad, and give it iPad OS
"Today, they sit in the corner. iPadOS simply isn’t an environment for most “serious” work."
You sound ridiculous.
Half of your argument evolves around your distorted view of "serious work".
What do you consider serious work?
I analyse satellite pictures from conflict zones on my M1 Pro iPad while smoking a blunt, on my back, on a blanket in the park, right now, and probably get paid by the hour more than you make in a day. I can ENHANCE with the power of my fingers as gradually as I need on a 13" screen, not being limited by tiny touchpad space or getting a stiff neck. Try the same with a MacBook.
I’d call that serious work.
My GF put her MacBook away and does Music via Creator Studio on her iPad Pro since it released, mobile and in a creative setting without disruption by her phone, or the necessity of a table, because the iPad got Cellular, and she can live comfortably from it. She’s actually working right now on the other side of the tree.
Not serious work either I guess.
My brother is taking photos of government officials during their travels, and works on iPad Pro exclusively during shoots. It’s much nicer to discuss and touch up photos with an official on an iPad than holding your MacBook in their face like an early 2000s playboy photographer.
Not serious work either I guess.
I frequently visit the Parliament in my country. A lot of the legislation knowledge work is done on iPads. By people who rather chill with the Parliament visitors in the sunlight, thanks to nanotexture, having a chat with them, without looking unapproachable behind a laptop screen or balancing a MacBook on their knees. iPads invite social interactions and make you approachable. MacBooks put up a wall.
Not serious work either I guess.
They are more mobile. I can basically sit down everywhere and get serious work done without looking like a MacBook Moron with an external screen battleship setup and an extra mouse.
My brother’s wife is using the LiDAR sensor inside the iPad Pro for her interior design work. She can do everything on one device. Where’s the LiDAR in the MacBook?
Guess that is not serious work either.
It has GPS, good luck navigating to the next gas station from the middle of nowhere when your phone dies with your MacBook. Guess you’ll just point it at the sky and yell Connect!.
If you travel for work iPad can be a lifesaver.
My lawyer does most work on his iPad Pro. If you read and annotate documents for a living, why the hell would you do it on a MacBook?
I know people in construction who only use iPad and get work done. Not everyone is a writer, or photographer, or walker.
It’s not the iPad or iPadOS that is limited in a way that doesn’t let you do "serious work".
It’s actually your mental ability to come up with better solutions. Don't blame Apple for being unflexible and dumber than most smart people choosing the right tool for the right job in the place they want to be, rather than being tied to an office or a wall outlet or relying on a phone with a lot smaller battery than an iPad, and their laptop.
The pencil is just another plus. If coding is your way to do serious work, yeah you’re kinda fucked on iPad but there are millions of people who get serious work done on their iPad and then use it recreationally laying on the couch or sitting in the bus where MacBooks look silly and are uncomfortable.
Love having a touchscreen laptop, though I'm annoyed that Apple will lock it behind a $5k price tag for now.
I love to do math on the iPad. I like to also draw on the iPad.
A pencil is necessary.
On the surface it makes sense. iOS, macOS, iPadOS, or even tvOS. They share largely the same code base and they could be developed together.
What Steve did at his time was clear differentiation. There is the iPhone Team, the Mac Team. And each have their own software and hardware. While some resources are shared and collaborated, they are structurally different. And has a very different focus.
Now it is merged, the OS and UI focus is also somewhat merged. And the focus is gone. The attention of detail dropped.
Time and time again, the idea and philosophy of one size fit all doesn't work. May be it never did. Both in Hardware, UI, and even Programming like Swift UI.