After writing for 6 years into an iPad Pro, I basically threw away all my pens. And I was a fountain pen lover. It's so much better to write on an iPad. I can change colors immediately, erase easier, all my writing is always available to me etc. It's no comparison.
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iPad Pro Apple Silicon on the Mac unintentionally killed the iPad Pro
- Thread starter Retskrad
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Considering great progress of mobile applications in last decade, some things really became easier to do on mobile devices.
Both have very very very different use cases.
This is a very narrow view of the market and both devices have their place.
Interjecting…
TLDR:
Of course in a dream world, everyone would love one device to do everything. But in the real world, there are always varying degrees of trade offs, so it’s not always ideal to combine things. That’s why even though there is a multitool like a Leatherman, there are still dedicated tools as well because they do their specific jobs better. And there are many people who prefer these dedicated tools. So a company that only sells dedicated tools is not (necessarily) just a greedy money-grabbing company if the dedicated tools legitimately do their job better, and people prefer them.
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So the question is, do the Mac and iPad do their respective jobs better as separate devices? And what would be sacrificed in combining them?
(I’m sure there are relevant technical aspects that are beyond me, but I’ll just speak to what I think is evident.)
First, let me address your mention of Apple combining the phone and iPod Touch (PAS camera, too). I think Apple believed those made a lot of sense to combine because they could all use the exact same form factor of a small handheld slab with a display (no physical transformation needed), and just exist as siloed apps on the same software platform (no rebooting). And the trade offs were extremely minimal—basically just using a touch UI instead of physical buttons (at least, I see that as a trade off), one or two more taps/swipes to get to the app, and (acceptable) hit on battery life. That’s all.
But with the Macbook and iPad, it’s not the same match made in heaven. Sure, the smallest Macbook and largest iPad have similar size screens (and now use the same chip), but there are some significant incompatible traits.
One has a permanently attached keyboard which allows for a bottom-heavy base and thin light display. It’s an overall thicker device with internals separated from the screen allowing for more thermal capacity, which allows for higher performance. It has a UI with tiny targets to have as many targets simultaneously on screen as possible. And it has an inherently more flexible OS. All of this optimizing it for productivity.
The other has a thin slate form factor for portability, and large targets for easy/fun touch input. Its OS is inherently less flexible/simplified for ease of use, security, and zippy performance. All of this optimizing it for basically everything the Mac isn’t optimized for (especially true for the smaller iPads).
Combining them into one device with one OS would necessarily mean sacrifices in these conflicting traits. These sacrifices are more significant than those made in the case of the iPhone.
There are proposed workarounds to avoid some of these sacrifices, the popular one being dual booting. But that sacrifices a smooth continuous experience since you would have to stop everything you’re doing, and restart your device each time. And two OSes would take up double resources like storage and maybe RAM. And not sure how memory swap would work. I suspect there might be other sacrifices that I’m not techie enough to know. In any case, these quirks make dual booting seem far from being in line with the Apple’s ideal UX.
Sure, these may be sacrifices that some are more than willing to make. But how big of a market that is is not clear. Microsoft has been chasing this all-in-one with their Surface Pro for a long time, and after many years of refining, has still only ever had modest success in sales and customer satisfaction. But regardless, the fact remains that there is at least some legitimate reason to keep the devices separate. This doesn’t prove Apple‘s innocent, but it does prove the possibility for it, at least in this case.
Of course, the elephant in the room is the fact that Apple has already done some combining of the devices—starting with the Smart Keyboard. I think Apple saw the physical keyboard as a necessary option to offer, because only having a virtual keyboard made the iPad too limited for even basic productivity to the vast majority. Then due to ergonomics, they had to offer a trackpad as well in the form of the Magic Keyboard. But this resulted in trade offs. The MK is quite heavy, and it’s an extra device to keep track of—negating the iPad’s portability. And it’s still top heavier with the iPad attached.
So Apple is definitely guilty of sending mixed messages with the trade offs they’ve already made. But even so, we can follow lines of logic to see how the iPad got to where it is now. And while the iPad will surely continue to improve, logic doesn’t necessarily dictate that it should converge with the Macbook.
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Drawing, PDF portrait reading/markup, laptop duties, and Sidecar.
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The main reason for no dual booting MacOS (à la bootcamp) is just money... The idea that not enough users may use it (on M1) so it should not be done, it's like not doing bootcamp on Intel Macs because not enough users would use it...
Except that on Intel it helped selling Macs at the detriment of Windows, on iPad it would be at the detriment of Macs, plus possibly less sales on the app store with a 30% cut if you can run some pro software directly on MacOS.
Surface pro cannot be an iPad, iPad pro is the only one that could be both a tablet and a MacOS device but until Apple finds a way to make it profitable enough (like with a "Mac keyboard" that costs as much as a Mac and adds weight, partially defeating the purpose) that won't happen...
Yes, very plausible points. I have my doubts though that it will ever be profitable enough. I just don’t see the demand in the real world, only from some in tech forums.
You mean they were working on Apple Silicon before the keynote? I am shocked! Apple let the Mac go without updates because they were focused on Apple Silicon to replace Intel. That is the intention of the post you quoted, you just didn't seem to understand my point.
Don’t let the revenue numbers fool you. When the revenue for Macs and iPads were close, the iPad was selling twice as many units as the Mac. With these numbers, the iPad is still likely outselling in units, just not by twice as much.
When you look at the OS’s individuals buy every year, macOS sells fewer units than all of them, including iPadOS. To be sure, there are millions of folks that still like and prefer macOS, but, by now, there are hundreds of millions of folks that bought and enjoyed their iPads over the years and their next computing device will likely also be an iPad. Because, it does what they want it to do with the features they most enjoy.
Fortunately for Apple both their macOS and iPadOS devices are selling well to folks that have never owned an Apple device (around half). iPad Pro, by itself, may never be AHEAD of the Mac, (That’s similar to pondering “What will put the Mac Pro ahead of the iPad?”) but Apple doesn’t have to “do” anything for it to outsell the Mac, it already is. And, when you look at the price disparity between Macs and iPads, they always will (unless Apple stops making them
)During their discussions around the time Apple offered their apologies for the state of the Mac Pro, Apple gave these numbers.
15 percent of ALL Mac users use at least one “pro” app frequently (these are performance intensive apps, music creation, video editing, graphic design and software development). An additional 15 percent of Mac users use pro apps, maybe, a few times a month. That 30 percent is what Apple sees as “pros” that are buying and using Macs in a professional way.
That means that 70% of folks using Macs really don’t need Macs as they’re decidedly NOT doing anything “professional” or processor intensive on them. Being behind macOS on professional work apps is not so bad when the majority of the computing world are not using professional work apps.
I do see the demand and I don't think it would be negligeable, but when you factor in the effect on MacBook air sales, I don't see the profits either....
Pretty sure Apple’s logic is that buying both devices are better than just one, and as such there is an iPad at every price point so that you can get both. Apple has no incentive to combine both platforms, why loose out on the revenue…
Apple silicon shared across the 2 platforms is a Cost savings move, if yields are good enough, then getting more M-series chips across multiple product lines, means allocating that fixed cost across a much bigger base, as well not have to develop two separate architectures.
Apple silicon shared across the 2 platforms is a Cost savings move, if yields are good enough, then getting more M-series chips across multiple product lines, means allocating that fixed cost across a much bigger base, as well not have to develop two separate architectures.
Yeah, the effective difference is almost like using a macOS account that doesn’t have admin privileges. You’re locked from stuff that could leave your system ineffective or inoperable but otherwise, create as many locations to store your files as you’d like. It’s more about not trying to learn how the system works than it is the system being incapable.
That’s kinda what I’m thinking, too, but I’m thinking more like it won’t exist as a “consumer” platform. While there was indeed a shot in the arm due to Covid, Mac sales had been flat in the range of 20-30 million units a year for awhile. I can totally see Apple continuing to make as low as 3-4 million Macs a year in the future as they become “Pro only” devices (that 30% of Mac users that Apple says uses a “pro” app at least once or twice a month) especially as they’re saving significant amounts of money by using their own processors.
Count me in. But I‘m not really interested in dual booting as @Digitalguy mention… just allow virtualization feature to be added for 3rd party apps. I can plug up a flash drive with an OS or download the OS from some site then install it via Parallels or VM Fusion app… I’ll be able to access that operating system within the app.
The people who access their remote OS on an iPad is where the demand is at and instead of dealing with slight lag it will be native, but allowing virtualization capabilities keeps the iPad the iPad.
To be fair, though, the people that designed the M1 were designing for a customer that had no other choice but to drive them to be successful as that’s the only customer they had. It remains to be seen if, on an open market with other choices, if Nuvia has what it takes to deliver compelling products.
I think it’s the BIGGER question of “How would one provide a system that has the flexibility that Mac users would expect on the SAME platform as a locked down iPadOS?” It could be that THAT question’s market price is not worth Apple putting forth the effort. But, I always go back to… why does it have to dual boot? If the iPad form factor is that compelling and macOS is ALSO compelling, why not JUST macOS on an iPad form factor?
Anything is overpriced if the user is not using it it’s full or intended potential.
I’ve send plenty of people make a living out of their iPad Pro for video and photo work.
iPad's main OS should always be iPadOS since it's a touch first device, MacOS should be an option. iPads could act as a laptop when needed (e.g. to work on the go) but for people who only want a laptop, a Macbook makes more sense.
As someone who had an iPad Pro 11 as their primary device for at least 2 years... yeah, nothing beats the touch interface on the iPad. When you wake up and spend all day on a computer for work, the last thing you really want to do at the end of the day is ... sit at that same computer for the rest half of the day. An iPad allows for a nice break from that monotony.
Speaking on overpriced - that was probably the biggest factor for me. I can't justify spending $1700 on a 1TB iPhone, $1300+ on an iPad Pro, and a lot more than that on my 16' MBP. Something had to give and the iPad is what gave.
Despite that, I cannot replicate the pure awesome reading experience that I had on my iPad Pro on any other device. Its form factor was PERFECT for an all day weekend reading experience. Nothing prompted me to read as much as my iPad did. So much so that it may be worth the $ in my specific case.
Years ago I always thought that the future would be a mobile device that we take with us, plug into a dock when we got home to use for our main computer/form of entertainment (gaming/TV) at home. IMO this is where things are going but we're a long way off from it (5-10 years).
I too have given up on the idea that 1 device fits all my needs. Just not going to happen anytime soon. The amount of discussion here on Macrumors trying to make/justify an all in one device is amusing and for some people it works really well - I know several people who run their businesses off of an iPad. But for a lot of us, it isn't going to work. So till then, it's device city... a watch, an iPhone, an iPad (least necessary in my case), and a MacBook.
I think Star Trek had it right. The more technology stays OUT of our way so we can enjoy life the better. That's what originally attracted me to Mac OS - it stayed out of the way so I could do what I wanted to do.
Publicly facing, yes the Mac line was “falling behind”. But the Apple Silicon development cycle was 5+ years (longer if you consider the A7 the confirmation Intel was on the way out, which I did). Intel had nothing of value to offer and hadn’t hit their promised power/heat envelopes in 4+ years.
But, the way macOS works, for example, allowing users with admin priv’s to install apps from outside the Mac AppStore, can’t work on a system that’s locked down the way the iPad is. So, having an iPad form factor (sans touch), with macOS only (or macOS with a full screen iPad emulator) is far more likely than any iPadOS/macOS device.
iPad folks aren’t looking for macOS on an iPad. I mean, they bought a non-macOS device to start with.
Some Mac folks may want macOS on an iPad, but you can bet that those same folks won’t accept a locked down version of macOS. I guess, I don’t understand why macOS on an iPad like device MUST include iPadOS. Will it not sell if it’s macOS only?I personally am one of the people who want the iPad more opened up, but I do not want Mac OS on it, it isn't designed for touch operation and I think it would just cause more headaches and software problems. I think that is the main confusion with those who want the iPad more Mac like and those who don't.But, the way macOS works, for example, allowing users with admin priv’s to install apps from outside the Mac AppStore, can’t work on a system that’s locked down the way the iPad is. So, having an iPad form factor (sans touch), with macOS only (or macOS with a full screen iPad emulator) is far more likely than any iPadOS/macOS device.
iPad folks aren’t looking for macOS on an iPad. I mean, they bought a non-macOS device to start with.
I want a more options to make the iPad a more viable device like a more robust file management and maybe a program similar to how you can run iPhone/iPad apps on the Mac but reversed if the dev chooses to make a "simplified" iPad version from their Mac one especially with the Macs and iPads having the "M" series