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IOS

Former Windows Chief Explains Why macOS on iPad is Futile Quest 121

Posted by msmash from the pipe-dream dept.
Tech columnist and venture investor MG Siegler, commenting on the new iPad Pro: I love the iPad for the things it's good at. And I love the MacBook for the things it's good at. What I want is less a completely combined device and more a single device that can run both macOS and iPadOS. And this new iPad Pro, again equipped with a chip faster than any MacBook, can do that if Apple allowed it to.

At first, maybe it's dual boot. That is, just let the iPad Pro load up macOS if it's attached to the Magic Keyboard and use the screen as a regular (but beautiful) monitor -- no touch. Over time, maybe macOS is just a "mode" inside of iPadOS -- complete with some elements updated to be touch-friendly, but not touch-first. Steven Sinofsky, the former head of Microsoft's Windows division, chiming in: It is not unusual for customers to want the best of all worlds. It is why Detroit invented convertibles and el caminos.

But the idea of a "dual boot" device is just nuts. It is guaranteed the only reality is it is running the wrong OS all the time for whatever you want to do. It is a toaster-refrigerator. Only techies like devices that "presto-change" into something else. Regular humans never flocked to El Caminos, and even today SUVs just became station wagons and almost none actually go off road :-)

Two things that keep going unanswered if you really want macOS on an iPad device:

1. What software on Mac do you want for an iPad device experience? What software will get rewritten for touch? If you want "touch-enabled" check out what happened on the Windows desktop. Nearly everything people say they want isn't features as much as the mouse interaction model. People want overlapping windows, a desktop of folders, infinitely resizable windows, and so on. These don't work on touch very well and certainly not for people who don't want to futz.
2. Will you be happy with battery life? The physics of an iPad mean the battery is 2/3rds the size of a Mac battery. Do you really want that? I don't. The reason the iPad is the 5.x mm device is because the default doesn't have a keyboard holding the battery. This is about the realities. The metaphors that people like on a desktop, heck that they love, just don't work with the blunt instrument of touch. It might be possible to build all new metaphors that use only tough and thus would be great on an iPad but that isn't what they tried. The device grew out of a phone. It's only their incredible work on iPhone that led to Mx silicon and their tireless work on the Mac-centric frameworks that delivered a big chunk (but not all) the privacy, reliability, battery life, security, etc. of the phone on Mac. [...]

Former Windows Chief Explains Why macOS on iPad is Futile Quest More | Reply

Former Windows Chief Explains Why macOS on iPad is Futile Quest

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  • ...devices that can do many different functions
    Problem is, they often do them all poorly
    I want a device that is designed and optimized to do ONE thing extremely well

    One small example that drives me crazy is screw heads with both a slot and phillips drive
    They are claimed to support two different drivers, but they fit both extremely poorly, often making the screw impossible to tighten or remove

    • usually that type of screw is used by electricians with a special screwdriver, that's why it doesn't work well with either a cross point or flat bladed screwdriver, because it is intended for a specialty screwdriver. that's the only example of such a screw that I have seen.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kisai ( 213879 )

      The thing is, he's not that wrong either.

      What people really want is a "stylus+touch-enabled" device that is also a good laptop. Those devices have never existed in any form that was good. There were "tablet PC's" that did this, but using most applications that weren't tablet enabled on it was awful. Likewise, using the tablet with a physical keyboard, also always awful because the iPad has no means of attaching the keyboard with stability of a laptop.

      The right device here is Apple making a MacOS for iPad th

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dgatwood ( 11270 )

        The right device here is Apple making a MacOS for iPad that also runs the iPad applications without having to "boot" into something. So when you plug in a USB-C dock it should switch to the MacOS interface, but not "boot" into another OS.

        You don't even need a dock. From a human interface perspective, it should be relatively easy to make an environment that "just works".

        • Add an extra keyboard icon button in the menu bar that pops up a touchscreen keyboard (that must be visually distinct from the keyboard layout switcher menu, if enabled).
        • Automatically adjust the viewport to the text insertion point while the touchscreen keyboard is showing.
        • Have a four-finger swipe gesture to move the viewport in apps that don't use Cocoa classes for inserti

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dgatwood ( 11270 )

          Treat a single touch point as moving the cursor, and a brief thumb tap below it as a mouse click.

          And maybe tap two extra fingers to start a drag, which would end when you release the initial finger.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Bert64 ( 520050 )

        The current macs are already capable of running ipad software, although without a touch screen some applications can be awkward to use.
        Having a touchscreen on a mac (assuming the keyboard and touchpad is retained too) would be useful for certain things, but it would be quite niche and probably not worth the price premium for most people.

  • I still remember going to the Apple Store when the first iPad came out - I couldnâ(TM)t wrap my head around it. âoeBut where are the files?â I asked. I was confused when the answer was âoein the appâ. Fast forward to now, and the biggest problem with trying to use it as a primary device is that app designers need to have anticipated every possible workflow. You canâ(TM)t just âoesave asâ and do with the file what you want. It means that you spend your time hacking a w

    • Re:Itâ(TM)s the file system, stupid (Score:4, Informative)

      by dfghjk ( 711126 ) on Wednesday May 15, 2024 @11:48AM (#64474177)

      Right, and that's the entire point of a device like an iPad, and it's precisely why the first question above is so stupid. "What software on Mac do you want for an iPad device experience?" Answer: an iPad "device experience" is not compatible with "Mac software", it is fundamentally designed to hide aspects crucial to Mac software.

      It should also be noted that tablets are NOT popular, the iPad "device experience" isn't very successful. Yes, Apple sells some, no one else does.

      • Re:Itâ(TM)s the file system, stupid (Score:5, Informative)

        by UnknowingFool ( 672806 ) on Wednesday May 15, 2024 @12:11PM (#64474257)

        It should also be noted that tablets are NOT popular, the iPad "device experience" isn't very successful. Yes, Apple sells some, no one else does.

        Define "popular" and "successful". Tablets do not sell as well as phones but Apple sold 48.5M tablets in 2023 alone and that is considered a down year. Samsung sold 26M. Would Apple and others prefer to sell billions of them? Yes. But selling tens of millions of units per year might be considered a success to those manufacturers.

        • Samsung sold. 26. Million. Tablets? Omg who?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mjwx ( 966435 )

          It should also be noted that tablets are NOT popular, the iPad "device experience" isn't very successful. Yes, Apple sells some, no one else does.

          Define "popular" and "successful". Tablets do not sell as well as phones but Apple sold 48.5M tablets in 2023 alone and that is considered a down year. Samsung sold 26M. Would Apple and others prefer to sell billions of them? Yes. But selling tens of millions of units per year might be considered a success to those manufacturers.

          Samsung alone sold 60m phones in Q1 2024.

          I've said it before but the tablet market has reached maximum saturation. Those that want one now have one, so we're really only selling replacement tablets to them and even that number will taper off as people figure out that they don't really need a new tablet when their old one breaks.

          • Samsung alone sold 60m phones in Q1 2024.

            Again no one is arguing whether more phones are sold. I am arguing that at $350 for the lowest iPad, tablets contributed at least $16B to Apple's revenue in 2023. Samsung is estimated to have earned $5B in tablet sales. The other poster said that was not a success.

            I've said it before but the tablet market has reached maximum saturation. Those that want one now have one, so we're really only selling replacement tablets to them and even that number will taper off as people figure out that they don't really need a new tablet when their old one breaks.

            And you can argue the exact same thing about phones.

      • Yes there is a HUGE market.

        My 73 year old mother now uses over her PC which is collecting dust. It gets on facebook, fits easily in the car on trips, it gets on the web, she has her apps from her phone, and does email.

        The PC is cumbersum and requires a keyboard and mouse and weird interfaces and complexity which is great for multitasking users in an office project managing. But not for her.

        I thought the same as you in 2009 and like Microsoft was confused thinking WHO WOULD BUY THIS? Netbooks too got laughed

      • It should also be noted that tablets are NOT popular, the iPad "device experience" isn't very successful. Yes, Apple sells some, no one else does.

        I had no idea that Apple buillds and sells Android tablets - Who knew?

      • The iPad is very successful, but not necessarily as a replacement for laptops/desktops. For example, if you look at web analytics, you'll see that tablets have paltry numbers (I suspect YouTube is the exception here).

        But the iPad still sells in very large numbers. My kids have iPads and all their friends have iPads. In that way, they're like the Gameboy of this era. Businesses use them as POS systems. They're used in business a lot to replace forms. For example, there are special CRMs for contractors that p

    • There were some paradigm shifts with smartphones and tablets. One of them less dependence on knowing details about filesystems. For example, the first MP3 players had CD player UI with filesystem navigation. That worked okay for a few dozen files but when they started getting small gigabyte HDDs, it was cumbersome to actually organize hundreds and thousands of songs around a filesystem hierarchy. I remember one friend whose main gripe about iTunes was he could not organize his songs in exactly the folders

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by caseih ( 160668 )

        I still miss those days. I like being able to organize a lot of my music and audio in directories, rather than relying on the tags, which I find limiting (but still useful). Lets me keep certain things separate and easy to call up. My father has spent some serious time and effort to rewrite his tags in a manner that allows him to emulate the old folder idea on the phone's music player.

        I also find it frustrating that audio players on Android seem to grab everything on my phone, even audio files that were in

        • Lets me keep certain things separate and easy to call up.

          You mean like a playlist? Those have been around since the beginning of MP3s. Current players even have autogenerated ones like Most Played, Last 25 Played, etc.

      • So, you don't need to know where on the filesystem an mp3 is because every single file is correctly ID3 tagged and you can remember the artist and/or title of every track?

        Isn't that like how you don't need a menu system to look for a rarely-used application whose name you have forgotten because you can just type the name of it into the search bar?

        • and you can remember the artist and/or title of every track?

          How do you find a song file in a file system directory if you cannot remember the artist or title?

          Isn't that like how you don't need a menu system to look for a rarely-used application whose name you have forgotten because you can just type the name of it into the search bar?

          1) You do know that songs are still organized in folders, right? The general structure is artist\album. If users like my friend want a different structure like year\album\artist they could not get that. 2) You do know that users can easily scroll songs by Artist, Album, Year, Genre, Composer, etc right? That is in addition to any search. 3) Again, if you don’t remember key details of a song like artist, h

  • the app store rules and 30% cut is why mac os is needed.

    If ios allowed full firefox then you don't need mac os to run real firefox.
    if ios allowed emulators (now more allowed) then you don't need mac os to run them on your iPad and it needs to be able to load roms from an folder.
    if they allowed side loading then less of an need for mac os.

    • The App Store is exactly why they won't allow MacOS on iPad. They've already got iOS compatibility in MacOS for the M-series CPUs. Hardware is now very similar between Mac/iPad. For the top-end iPads, they could relatively easily create a MacOS-for-iPad with an instantly-toggleable 'iOS Mode'. But they want to keep the iPad locked down and shackled to the App Store, even though the App Store has mostly failed at creating quality software for the device, while encouraging incredibly customer-hostile moneti

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mjwx ( 966435 )

      the app store rules and 30% cut is why mac os is needed.

      If ios allowed full firefox then you don't need mac os to run real firefox.
      if ios allowed emulators (now more allowed) then you don't need mac os to run them on your iPad and it needs to be able to load roms from an folder.
      if they allowed side loading then less of an need for mac os.

      Don't worry, it'll only be a matter of time before the App Store rules on the Mac, Firefox is disallowed, emulators will no longer run and side loading will be a thing of the past as well.

  • And actually, who cares? (Score:5, Informative)

    by 0xG ( 712423 ) on Wednesday May 15, 2024 @11:46AM (#64474171)

    Who exactly is asking for this?
    Sure, the ipad is ridiculously overpowered. And overpriced.
    But who is clamoring for dual boot?

    It's just a fake controversy to whip up publicity.

    • Re:And actually, who cares? (Score:5, Informative)

      by pr0nbot ( 313417 ) on Wednesday May 15, 2024 @12:03PM (#64474227)

      I use a Microsoft Surface. It's neither a great tablet nor a great laptop, but to me it's better than having two devices.

      It's not a great tablet because it's a bit big and heavy, and because Windows is sucky as a touch UI. But tbh when using it in tablet mode I'm in a browser and it's fine for that.

      It's not a great laptop because it's a bit small for work, and the keyboard's rubbish for on the go, but plugging in a proper keyboard and running monitors is possible so it's fine for that.

      As a nerd, I'm not sure what the holy grail is - probably a Westworld style folding phablet that can be docked.

      • As a nerd, I'm not sure what the holy grail is - probably a Westworld style folding phablet that can be docked.

        I've come to accept that attempting to consolidate devices just leads to a poor experience. The best way to do it is go overboard and truly nerd out:

        Create a home lab file server. All your devices can sync to it wherever they are. Use an iPad when that's most convenient, a laptop when that's most convenient, and a desktop when that's most convenient. Then you create a VPS and sync that with your home lab, then sync all your devices to the VPS (NextCloud makes this super easy). You can also set up Wireguard

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by pr0nbot ( 313417 )

          I'm somewhere on the road to building my own whole ecosphere - NAS, wireguard etc.

          But I still think that really what I'm chasing is being able to have state persist across mode transitions, i.e. if I start something on a phone because I'm in transit, then sit down at the desk to continue it, then have to walk to the gallery to check something and complete the job, I don't want to be having to somehow sync/transfer state across different devices/OSes, I just want to switch mode and carry on seamlessly.

          Truly

          • I would say that VPS + NextCloud would get you closest to what you are looking for. Sure, you are technically syncing, but it is seamless enough that you do not really notice.

            The only downside is that if you are not always around wifi, you will have to tether other devices or get a tablet with a modem (and pay for another line).

    • Who exactly is asking for this? Sure, the ipad is ridiculously overpowered. And overpriced. But who is clamoring for dual boot?

      There are many apps that aren't available for the iPad, but should be. For me, the most painful is Lightroom because Adobe is a dumpster fire for all sorts of stupid reasons. Their desktop-only Lightroom classic version is considered FAR superior to the iPad version by nearly all users. However, I'd also like IntelliJ on an iPad. I'd rather carry my iPad around on vacation than my work laptop in case I am needed in an emergency. It would never be my first choice of a development environment, but will d

      • I prefer not to have any work device with me when I'm on holiday. If the there's an emergency, they can fly me back to the UK and compensate with extra time off in the next school holidays. This ain't going to happen! I try to ensure I'm not truck count one. It helps my boss is in Germany these days rather than the US and he has more holiday than me and respects people's personal time.

        • I prefer not to have any work device with me when I'm on holiday. If the there's an emergency, they can fly me back to the UK and compensate with extra time off in the next school holidays. This ain't going to happen! I try to ensure I'm not truck count one. It helps my boss is in Germany these days rather than the US and he has more holiday than me and respects people's personal time.

          Here's the thing...responsible adults know you need to make your employer happy...just like the customer...even if you shouldn't and there are some boundaries that shouldn't be crossed...but you can take a stand or you can just quickly do it, take an extra vaca day and make everyone happy. When a massive emergency happens with a client that pays a million a month, they want it solved promptly. When you are on vaca, it's not unreasonable for your boss to ask for you to take some time to look into it...even

          • Sounds like youâ(TM)re afraid of an abusive boss. If they retaliated against me for something like that, weâ(TM)d be talking a lot of money for constructive dismissal. If you have a client paying a million a month, your boss can afford to have a second person who can cover for you. In fact, they better have a second person because otherwise they are being negligent having truck count one. In this case, who is putting the business at most risk or causing the most damage, you or your boss?

            • Sounds like youâ(TM)re afraid of an abusive boss. If they retaliated against me for something like that, weâ(TM)d be talking a lot of money for constructive dismissal. If you have a client paying a million a month, your boss can afford to have a second person who can cover for you. In fact, they better have a second person because otherwise they are being negligent having truck count one. In this case, who is putting the business at most risk or causing the most damage, you or your boss?

              Cool theory, but there's the law and then there's reality. First of all, there is no law saying an employer can't call you on vaca. So, don't be sure there's a payout. Secondly, let's take an extreme example. In the USA, you're protected from racial discrimination. I am confident a former boss was racist towards me and everyone not of his race. He'd be harsher on people of other races and focus on promoting those of his race. Everyone knew this guy was a racist (but his boss was also the same race an

          • You're basically saying you can't go off grid or perhaps the other side of the planet. You can't spend a week hiking Kilimanjaro or Patagonia or on a live aboard scuba diving the Great Barrier or visiting in-laws 11 time zones away in Australia. These are things I like to do. My personal time is not ruled by work. If you can do this, your boss doesn't need to contact you when you're closer to home or even staycationing.

  • This is a Microsoft Blind Spot (Score:4, Informative)

    by MikeDataLink ( 536925 ) on Wednesday May 15, 2024 @11:47AM (#64474175) Homepage Journal

    The reason the iPhone and iPad took off is because they simplified the OS and tailored it specifically to the device, screen size, and type of human interface.

    Microsoft's approach of shoehorning Windows into every device without creating a tailored OS is why they completely failed and lost the mobile and tablet market to Apple and Google.

    • Re:This is a Microsoft Blind Spot (Score:5, Interesting)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Wednesday May 15, 2024 @12:13PM (#64474269)

      Microsoft's approach of shoehorning Windows into every device without creating a tailored OS is why they completely failed and lost the mobile and tablet market to Apple and Google.

      Actually Microsoft's biggest failures were a dedicated mobile OS. Microsoft making their OS adapt to context of a device created a whole new market of "slate" devices (dumbest term ever) in which neither Google nor Apple are competing. Their Surface devices are selling well, and it started significant competition in the laptop world - with every vendor out there offering both slates and 2-in-1 devices, and also laptops with pen styluses, all of which of course run Windows.

      You may not use it, or like it, but they've done the opposite of "completely failed" when they mushed the tablet and PC together.

      • Re:This is a Microsoft Blind Spot (Score:4, Informative)

        by Billly Gates ( 198444 ) on Wednesday May 15, 2024 @12:56PM (#64474443) Journal

        Windows Phone WAS amazing! (Not WindowsCE which was terrible).

        If you ever used it you would know. It's UI and back and forth flows were done by Microsoft Research decades ago.

        Microsoft lost because Apple and Google started in 2004. By the time Microsoft freaked out and grabbed the Zune and Microsoft's research Metro UI in 2009/10 it was 6 years behind. 2011 Google was ready and the rest is history. WebOS I heard good things about too which also was made in 2004.

        WebOS was too late before it came into the market outside of printers. In IT you snooze you lose.

        But WindowsCE sucked for the exact same reasons inversely. It tried a desktop UI on a mobile device. Palm too with the stylus.

        • WebOS was quite good even upon initial release and Apple, Google, and even Microsoft have used some of the ideas that it introduced over a decade ago in their own operating systems. If Palm had come out with it a year or two earlier instead of as a response to Apple and two years after the iPhone, they might still be around. WebOS is still in use today though, it's just moved devices and is now used on LG TVs.

          Windows Phone was pretty decent as well. I think people dislike it because Microsoft decided it

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Bahbus ( 1180627 )

            People disliked it because of the lack of apps. People who didn't give a shit about apps at all tended to like Windows Phone - especially if you got one of the Nokia models. I didn't care about apps like SnapChat, Angry Birds, Instagram, or whatever else was popular at the time. At that time, I had a superior phone and a superior camera to any other smartphone on the market.

            • I played with one. I really liked it.
              The dead app ecosystem was definitely a deal breaker for me though. It's too bad. I'd have liked to have seen it succeed.
              A third player in the market would have been a good thing.

        • Windows Phone WAS amazing! (Not WindowsCE which was terrible). If you ever used it you would know.

          No. I have used it. I was a windows phone fanboi and bought one after rocking my Windows Mobile 6 device for longer than any sane person should. Windows Phone 7 had an ... okay UI. That's it. It was OK. But that's the thing about UIs, you don't share my opinion because you are not me, and in many cases UIs are just opinions, often chasing fads of the day.

          Personally I find the entre Metro home screen a complete clusterfuck. Metro in general I should say. I liked Windows Phone as much as I liked the metro sty

      • Their Surface devices are selling well, and it started significant competition in the laptop world

        I'd be curious to see this broken down between consumer retail sales and corporate/institutional fleet sales.
        A medium sized business might purchase 1,500 Surfaces for employees at their headquarters, but I seriously doubt there are another 1,500 Surfaces sitting on various coffee tables in the houses and apartments within a 5 mile radius of the office.

        I can easily believe their Surface devices are selling well to government/education institutions with vendor lock-in and corporations who are always looking t

        • I see the exact opposite. A couple of companies have attempted the Surface route (including the one I work for). It hasn't gone well. These devices are the opposite of what corporations typically go for. Unrepairable, unserviceable, and come with an expensive maintenance contract. Our own experience was an incredibly high failure rate of around 33% across a population of around 6000 devices (so I've been told) - that signed the death kneel for our corporate Surface experiment and we're back to Dells (after

          • Thanks for that thoughtful reply. Good points. I have a similar experience with trying to make a Surface fleet work because someone at the very top saw a good sales demo and went all-in on a few thousand of them. Their uniformity and feature-limitations (as dictated by our current Intune Gestapo) make them appear extremely successful to about 3 people in upper management. Every other person involved, including the end users, see them as a giant PITA, unreliable, underpowered, quick-aging hardware. Currently

            • Ha. Underpowered. One of my biggest gripes is that corporations can't leave things alone. On paper my work laptop well out performs my Surface Pro 8. In practice it's slower than my Pro 3. It's amazing how much of the grumbles with corporate laptops comes from the endless crap they load on them to lock them down. I've never had a fast corporate device regardless of how good the hardware was. /rant over.

              I'm not disagreeing with you by the way. The Surface devices get very VERY expensive compared to normal la

              • Ha. Underpowered. One of my biggest gripes is that corporations can't leave things alone. On paper my work laptop well out performs my Surface Pro 8. In practice it's slower than my Pro 3. It's amazing how much of the grumbles with corporate laptops comes from the endless crap they load on them to lock them down. I've never had a fast corporate device regardless of how good the hardware was. /rant over.

                I'm not disagreeing with you by the way. The Surface devices get very VERY expensive compared to normal laptops when you move into the acceptably capable territory. "Starting from $750" my fat arse! The first usable device costs $1100 and that's just to get away from the woefully insufficient 128GB SSD. You're already at $1300 for any other spec upgrade including getting away from the 8GB of RAM which you'll need to do if your run MS Teams. /rant over :-)

                Yeahhh... ours were intended for a special use case that the top dog thought should be just fine with the lowest tier. "But it's okay because these are just a launch platform. All the actual compute will done in the cloud!!!" Now that top dog has moved onto someone else's backyard, and we're trying to piece together useful services from all these chewed up "indestructible toys".

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Bert64 ( 520050 )

        The problem was one of branding...
        Calling it "Windows" implied compatibility with a product users already have and are familiar with, only it wasn't really compatible, didn't run the same software or have the same interface. There were plenty of people who were disappointed to find that "windows phone" could not run the existing desktop applications they had.

        Apple made "iPad", not "Mac Pad". It was seen as a different product, and judged on its own merits rather than being directly compared to an existing p

        • The problem was one of branding...

          It was not. The problem was that Microsoft ignored what made the modern phone popular - actual broad function and appeal. Ask anyone what they remember most prominently about iPod advertisements over the past 2 decades and you'll almost universally get one answer: "There's an app for that!"

          No one cares what something is called. Girls weren't shoving iPads down their pants 1 week a month. The fact that it was a different product was obvious. The issue (and I say this as someone who used several iterations of

    • To MS, when all they had is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Incidentally Bill Gates rejected a light touchscreen e-reader back in 1998 [dailymail.co.uk] because it didn't have a Windows UI. Despite engineers arguing that a Windows interface was unnecessary for an e-reader, he thought e-readers would never catch on. While Kindles have not replaced PCs, there was a market there that MS missed.
    • Simplified OS was essential on early hardware with limited power. But now we've got M4 iPad Pros. It's an utter waste of hardware/money running such a limited and locked-down shackled-to-an-App-Store 'content consumption OS' on those things.

    • Microsoft screwed up both ways. Initially they tried to make mobile devices look and work like Windows, with a start menu and task bar. This didn't work, so they designed a mobile-focused interface, and made their desktop work the same way, which is also backwards.

      To further the car analogy, it would be like trying to build a chassis-on-frame sports car, just like a heavy duty truck is built. When that doesn't work out, you switch the sports car to unibody construction, and make your heavy duty trucks unibo

    • The did create several tailored OS systems, and unless you count Apple's Newton in the 1990's, they were far ahead of their time. The problem was that it was targeted to nerds and marketed poorly. Windows Mobile and the Pocket PC were amazing products 25 years ago, but comparing what they did to the iPhone is like comparing the Hunchback of Notre Dame to Marilyn Monroe.

  • maybe someday the ipad will be successful (Score:5, Informative)

    by k3v0 ( 592611 ) on Wednesday May 15, 2024 @11:55AM (#64474207) Journal
    oh wait it already is... without OS X

  • *cough* Windows 8 *cough* (Score:3)

    by Viol8 ( 599362 ) on Wednesday May 15, 2024 @11:55AM (#64474209) Homepage

    Someone at MS has a short memory.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Junta ( 36770 )

      I mean, he cited it right there in the summary. It boils down to "it sucked when Microsoft did it, therefore it would suck no matter what who tries".

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by EvilSS ( 557649 )

      If you want "touch-enabled" check out what happened on the Windows desktop.

      They didn't forget, that was part of his argument against it.

  • You could just have two UIs (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Wednesday May 15, 2024 @12:11PM (#64474259)
    on one device. It's not that hard. There's plenty of memory to run them both. You'd switch between the two when the device docks / undocks. It'd be like running two different window managers in Linux. And it's not like Apple doesn't have money to make it happen.

    What you can't do is have a single UI that does both tasks, Microsoft learned that the hard way with Windows 8.

    That said, I can't see doing this since you want to sell both a macbook and an iPad. If you combine them that's one less sale.
    • Right, it should just switch to MacOS mode when it detects a mouse/keyboard/external monitor plugged in. Best of both worlds. Just plug from monitor and it goes back to tablet mode. This thing is just an Macbook Air without a keyboard/touchpad natively attached.
      • And I'm sure a thousand Apple engineers have suggested this. And even now it's techically quite possible and would likely perform great on the latest devices, they won't do it because it means relinquishing control over the device, and letting them run software outside of their control. (Any MacOS chained to the App Store and incapable of running unsigned code wouldn't really be MacOS)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by w3woody ( 44457 )

      My take would be to have iPad switch to macOS mode (for a specific macOS application) if the following conditions were met:

      • 1. A keyboard and a mouse or track pad are connected to the iPad. (For example, the Magic Keyboard [apple.com].)
      • 2. The user launches a macOS application, and that application is 'frontmost'.

      The problem, really, is that my sausage-sized fingers can only mash buttons no smaller than 44x44 pixels in size with any accuracy on a touch device. Further, the very concept of 'hovering' makes no sense. (C

  • Luv smart people at Microsoft (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ElitistWhiner ( 79961 ) on Wednesday May 15, 2024 @12:14PM (#64474277) Journal

    even though the company stifles creativity that could change the world.

    Software brought the toaster-refrigerator conundrum which people can’t see why not. Systems are designed to do one task well. Asking the same system to suddenly be entirely proficient at a separate and different task is a big fail. His stand is well grounded.

    MacOS is large workspace centric, high productivity oriented system that is files-first prioritized
    iPadOS is handheld centric, high portability mobile oriented system that is synch-first prioritized.

    I keep a MacOS in reserve for large tasks
    I run dual iPads with one in charge mode for on-the-go field work
    I have two iPhones one music, other comms and light-duty reference

    • Systems are designed to do one task well.

      I used to think that until I started carrying around 4 different systems (not sure how you manage with 6), and then I asked myself "Am *I* using the systems well?". The answer is no. The single best thing I ever did was replace two special purpose devices for a hybrid device. I can't believe I used to carry a tablet and a laptop around and juggle between them. Are 2-in-1 or slate devices as good of a tablet as an iPad, or as good of a laptop as a laptop? Not really.

      But hybrid devices are designed to do one

      • I've owned so many hybrids. I'll never stop looking for the one that's Great.
        They'll get there one day, and then separate devices can fuck right off. Like you were, I'm fucking tired of carrying a 30lb backpack full of devices.

  • And I love the MacBook for the things it's good at.

    Being a computer? Yeah, I could see how a Microsoft marketingoid would gloss over this. I use mainly use Windows and Linux, but I've owned Macs in the past. Getting shit done is what that platform is about. I'm more of a tinkerer that can tolerate the eccentricities of Linux or the blatant user abuse of Windows.

  • Apple is always behind.

    We have had this capability for years

    Plug in your tablet or mobile to a compatible display, you get a full desktop experience, with most productivity apps, like Google Workspace, working flawlessly.

    No wire? No problem. Dex works wirelessly with compatible displays.

    And just for kicks, plug them in to a Windows Laptop, open Samsung Dex, and have a desktop on a desktop.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Junta ( 36770 )

      I would say that the use case could be cool for a phone. It's a portable device in the pocket, and then you dock it to have your desktop. Dex and Motorola's are... fine. Unfortunately all the android and chrome window management are kind of crappy. Android apps further shy away from being *entirely* awesome with keyboard, mouse, and multiwindow.

    • lol- Dex is a pile of shit.
      It's just Android with a hacky quasi-functional windowing interface pasted on it.

      I played with it for a few weeks when I got my Galaxy Tab S7+
      It's not a desktop. It's an Android environment tortured into something that looks like a bad 90s desktop.

  • This Whole Thing Is Hilarious (Score:3)

    by organgtool ( 966989 ) on Wednesday May 15, 2024 @02:37PM (#64474817)
    So the former executive of a competing company complains that feature nobody asked for would be a futile endeavor. Did this article come from The Onion?
  • I just want Blender and Gimp with an Apple Pencil, but actually integrated into the apps. I still want all the keyboard short cuts from a real keyboard. So, ideally Apple could make a iPad-like monitor for Macs.

  • Devs need to buy two computers, the ipad and the macbook.

    Skips over the reason why windows rt sucked kind of and the reason why apple doesn't want you to have an os on the ipad that sidesteps the appstore. Maybe personal reasons. Maybe.

  • "People want overlapping windows, a desktop of folders, "

    I read that and im no longer interested in ihis opinions.
    Nobody would choose that as a feature - a desktop of folders ?

  • ....was to get to the underlying Unix and run some of my scientific software. Used a small bluetooth keyboard for input. . It was so small and portable, I loved it!
    But it was mostly for fun, i.e., to see if I could do it.
    Only trouble was, I couldn't get gfortran working. :-/

  • Microsoft's response to iOS and macOS was Windows 8.

    For those that don't remember, Windows 8 was the PC OS that removed the desktop entirely for a fullscreen start screen. Apps were run in fullscreen mode. (Something we used to call MS-DOS). Microsoft intended this to "unify" the UI with Windows Mobile.

    It failed utterly, for many documented reasons and in many documented ways. Microsoft grudgingly accepted defeat in this, skipped versioning Windows 9 and fast tracked Windows 10 out the door with the "tr

  • So the question "Why can't I run macOS on an iPad with external peripherals for input and the screen used only for display with the touchcreen aspect disabled?" is answered with "Ah, well, you see, it would mean rewriting all the macOS and apps so that they work with a touchscreen!".

    Is it just my reading comprehension which is failing? Am I taking crazy pills?

    • You're not crazy. That's definitely a scapegoat. The _real_ reason is given by bluescrn above: combining macOS onto the iPad will allow people to break out of the app store, relinquishing Apple's tight grip on the app ecosystem.

  • Siegler wants MacOS only when there's a keyboard and touchpad attached, Sinowsky is talking about adapting everything to touch. I think, MacOS would work with keyboard and mouse support, but it's probably not a great solution to run both. I'd rather wish, ipadOS would evolve into something more useful and someday be able to run macos desktop-apps. DaVinci Resolve is a great and useful example, where you can "cheat" the mobile app into revealing it's desktop UI. That mostly works - with a keyboard and mouse

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